Scientific Advisory Board
Disclaimer: Our Scientific Board of Advisors has reviewed the FAQ and Myths in Learn. They are not responsible for any other content on this site.
Becky Alexander
Becky Alexander is an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, and the mother of a beautiful 3 year-old girl. She also is a member of the executive board of the Program on Climate Change at the UW. Her research focuses on the interaction of atmospheric chemistry and climate change. She uses measurements from ice cores drilled in Greenland and Antarctica, combined with computer modeling, to explain past variability in the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Her goal is to improve predictions of future air pollution concentrations in a warmer world.
Cecilia Bitz
Cecilia Bitz is an assistant professor in the Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Washington. Her research focus is on climate and climate change, especially in high latitudes involving snow and ice. She is a member of the advisory board to the Community Climate System Model and the scientific steering committee for the International Study of Arctic Change. One of Cecilia's recent publications offers an explanation for why Arctic sea ice is retreating rapidly in summer, but not in winter. She has also written about the near absence of warming and sea ice retreat in the Antarctic. One of her current projects is to study mechanisms of abrupt climate change. The primary tools for her work are a variety of climate models, from simple reduced models to sophisticated climate system models.
Chris Bretherton
Chris Bretherton is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Applied Mathematics, and Director of the Program on Climate Change at the University of Washington (UW). He got his Ph.D. at MIT in 1984, has been at UW since 1985, and has helped write over 100 peer-reviewed publications. His research interests are primarily in turbulence, its impacts on cloud formation, and the representation of these processes in climate prediction models. He has two sons who (like him) love skiing. To preserve the snow, they are fighting global warming by turning off their compact fluorescent lights when not in their room.
Jim McCaa
Jim McCaa is the director of scientific computing at 3TIER, an energy efficiency company that serves the renewable energy industry through assessment and forecasting of weather and climate and their impacts on solar, wind, and hydroelectric power generation. At work, his main focus is bridging the science gap between university research and the needs of renewable energy power producers. Prior to joining 3TIER, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, and worked as an Associate Scientist in the Climate Modeling Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
