214 Monell

61 Route 9W - PO Box 1000

Palisades

NY

10964-8000

US

Phone: 

(845) 365-8348

mpurdy@ldeo.columbia.edu

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Michael Purdy is Director of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He received his Ph. D. degree from the University of Cambridge in the UK in Marine Geophysics in 1974 and joined Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts as a Post Doctoral Scholar. Over the next 20 years he built a successful research group specializing in observational ocean bottom seismology, studying the structure and dynamics of the earth's crust beneath the ocean. In 1991 he became Chairman of the Department of Geology and Geophysics (G&G) at WHOI, one of the world's leading Marine G&G Departments, and spent four years gaining experience in both national and international marine science planning and administration. He is author or co-author of more than 60 research articles in peer reviewed journals, more than 20 other reports and articles, and more than 100 published conference abstracts.

In 1995 he joined the Federal Government as Director of the Division of Ocean Sciences at the National Science Foundation, and spent five years managing an annual budget of more than $200M - the primary source of funding for ocean sciences research in the nation's universities. While at NSF he established the new multi-disciplinary research program "Life in Extreme Environments" and built several valuable interagency collaborations.

In 2000 he joined Columbia University as the Director of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the single largest unit of the Columbia Earth Institute. In this position his primary interests are in the building of a first class interdisciplinary research institution that leads the world, not only in the quality of its research, but also in its ability to relate the results of this research to earth issues of importance to humanity. These responsibilities consume all available time and disallow the pursuit of independent research activities.