Biography
Susan K. Avery, PhD
Susan K. Avery took office as
president and director of WHOI on February 4, 2008. Avery is the ninth director
in the institution’s 78-year history, and the first woman to hold the position.
As an oceanographic leader with a
background in atmospheric research, Avery has used her unique position to
underscore the importance of ocean-atmosphere interactions in understanding
whole Earth systems. Since taking the helm at WHOI, Avery has delivered
Congressional testimony and presentations at scientific conferences such as the
American Meteorological Society, the IEEE
International Geoscience & Remote Sensing Symposium, the American
Geological Union, and the Partnership for Observation
of the Global Ocean (POGO), often directing
her comments at the intersection of atmospheric, earth, and ocean science.
Avery has extensive experience as
a leader within scientific institutions, She came to WHOI from the University
of Colorado at Boulder (UCB), where she was a member of the faculty since 1982,
and where she served in interim positions as vice chancellor for research and
dean of the graduate school, as well as provost and executive vice chancellor
for academic affairs. From 1994-2004,
she served as director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in
Environmental Sciences (CIRES), the first woman and first engineer to hold that
position. There, she facilitated new interdisciplinary research efforts
spanning the geosciences while bringing them together with social and
biological sciences and helped establish a thriving K-12 outreach program and a
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.
Avery’s research includes studies
of atmospheric circulation and precipitation, climate variability and water
resources, and the development of new radar techniques and instruments for
remote sensing. The author or co-author of more than 80 peer-reviewed articles,
Avery helped form an integrated science and assessment program that examines the
impacts of climate variability on water in the American West. She also worked with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and the Climate Change Science Program to help
formulate a national strategic science plan for climate research.
Avery is a fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and
of the American Meteorological Society, for which she also served as
president. She is a member of the
advisory board for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a past chair of the board
of trustees of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. She has also served on numerous advisory
panels, committees, and councils for the National Science Foundation, the
National Research Council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Avery earned a bachelor's degree
in physics from Michigan State University
in 1972, a master's in physics from the University
of Illinois in 1974, and a doctorate
in atmospheric science from the University
of Illinois in 1978.