REACT Scientific Advisory Board
Our Scientific Advisory Board was comprised of some of the best and brightest in the climatological community. Their deep knowledge of ocean and atmospheric science and their leading edge research and modeling were fundamental to our realization of the REACT Program.
Amala Mahadevan
Senior Scientist, WHOI, Faculty at MIT/WHOI Joint Program
Amala Mahadevan is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and faculty in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics from Stanford University and was a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Chicago. Her interests lie in exploring physical processes that shape the oceanic environment, particularly those that affect biological processes and the oceanic carbon cycle with which the earth’s climate is so intrinsically linked. She has pioneered the understanding of submesoscale dynamics, fronts and eddies in the upper ocean using models that she developed, along with oceanic observations from research expeditions. Amala is the Faculty Dean of Mather House, one of the 12 undergraduate houses at Harvard University that is home to 400 upperclassmen. She is a recipient of the Radcliffe fellowship in 2015 and MIT’s Frank E. Perkins award for excellence in graduate advising in the School of Science in 2019. She leads an active federally funded research program and teaches and advises students in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program.
Andrea Fassbender
Scientist, Marine Scientist, MBARI; Assistant Adjunct Professor, UC Santa Cruz
Andrea Fassbender is a scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) studying marine biogeochemical cycling and the ocean’s role in global climate through the carbon cycle. Andrea earned her Master’s Degree and Ph.D. in Oceanography, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Climate Science, from the University of Washington. She now leads the Marine Biogeochemistry Group at MBARI. Key research priorities include (1) developing accurate, scalable methods to quantify the biological carbon pump from sensors on autonomous platforms and satellites, (2) characterizing the ocean carbon sink sensitivity to natural and anthropogenic carbon cycle interactions, (3) creating new tools to measure long-term changes in ocean carbon chemistry, and (4) exploring the evolution of ocean acidification in coastal and open-ocean ecosystems.
Chris E. Forest
Professor of Climate Dynamics, Director of ESMAD, Penn State
Chris E. Forest is Professor of Climate Dynamics in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State. He joined the faculty there in 2008. He received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics, Engineering, and Physics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Ph.D. in Meteorology from MIT. His research focuses on basic understanding of climate dynamics, quantifying uncertainty in climate predictions, and understanding how to use climate information for assessing climate risks. He is the Director for the Penn State Center for Earth System Modeling, Analysis, and Data (ESMAD), and also currently affiliated with the Department of Geosciences. He is an associate in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and an associate director for the Network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management. He served as an IPCC AR5 lead author on the Evaluation of Climate Models chapter and on a report for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program examining the estimates of temperature trends in the atmospheric and surface climate data. He has served on the Electorate Nominating Committee for the Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences Section of the AAAS and is currently the Chair of the Topical Group for the Physics of Climate for the American Physical Society (APS GPC). He served as an author on the National Academies report on "Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon."
Christopher Edwards
Professor of Ocean Sciences, UC Santa Cruz
Christopher Edwards is a Professor in Ocean Sciences Department and Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz. He received his Bachelor’s in Physics from Haverford College, and his PH.D. in Physical Oceanography from MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. His research interests include Physical Oceanography, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics, and Ocean Observing Systems. He has published widely in the areas of Oceanography, Numerical Modeling, and Data Assimilation, with a particular geographic focus on the California Current System.
Matthew Mazloff
Associate Researcher, Scripps Institute
Matthew Mazloff is an Associate Researcher in Climate, Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography at Scripps Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. His interests focus on understanding the ocean and earth system by utilizing model--observation syntheses. The ‘state estimates’ he produces are distributed via server and have a large international user community. Research using those estimates has spanned a broad range of topics including air-sea exchanges, the carbon cycle, the ocean circulation, and the dynamical balances governing this circulation. This effort contributes to the ongoing development of the assimilating version of the MIT general circulation model. Matthew is a member of the CLIVAR Global Synthesis and Observations Panel and Southern Ocean Regional Panel, the US OCB Biogeochemical-Argo Steering Committee, the Southern Ocean Observing System Steering Committee, and the SWOT Science Definition Team. He is also a member of ECCO (https://ecco.jpl.nasa.gov/) and SOCCOM (https://soccom.princeton.edu/).
Michael Meredith
Science Leader, British Antarctic Survey; Professor, UHI-Scotland
Professor Mike Meredith is an oceanographer and Science Leader at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge, UK. He received his Masters of Science in Oceanography from the University of Southampton, UK, and his Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of East Anglia, UK. He is head of the Polar Oceans team at BAS, which has research foci on determining the role of the polar oceans on global climate, the ice sheets, and the interdisciplinary ocean system. He was Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, published in 2019. Mike led the design and delivery of the multi-institute, £10M ORCHESTRA programme, which is unravelling the role of the Southern Ocean in controlling global climate. In 2018, he was awarded the Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the study of the Southern Ocean and its global impacts. He was also awarded the 2018 Challenger Medal, for exceptional contributions to marine science. He holds an honorary Chair at UHI, is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, and a NERC Individual Merit Promotion (Band 2) scientist. In 2020 he was awarded the Polar Medal by HM the Queen, for outstanding service in the field of polar research.
Simon Bittleston
Vice President of Research, Schlumberger
Simon Bittleston is Vice President - Science & Technology for Schlumberger New Energy. His previous positions have included Vice President - Research, Vice President - Product Development and Vice President - Mergers & Acquisitions. He received a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Imperial College London, and a Ph.D. in fluid mechanics from the University of Bristol, UK. Simon joined Schlumberger in 1985 and worked at Schlumberger Cambridge Research becoming a research program manager. He moved to Norway in 1993 and became domain manager for the development of Marine Seismic systems where he was responsible for the development of Q-Marine. In 1999 he returned to the UK as a Research Director, and then in 2001 moved to Houston as VP Product Development which included all Product Development and Manufacturing for Schlumberger. He is also a By-Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge and an Honorary Fellow of Darwin College Cambridge.
