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New Director Named for WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute


December 23, 2004

A Gulf Stream and ocean circulation expert has been named second director of the Ocean and Climate Change Institute at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Physical Oceanographer Terrence Joyce will assume his new position on January 1, 2005. He succeeds William Curry, who has held the position since 2001. Curry is a senior scientist in the Institution’s Geology and Geophysics Department and plans to continue his research on climate change.

Joyce’s research interests include oceanic fronts and mixing phenomena, observations and dynamics of warm core Gulf Stream rings, and the general circulation of the ocean and its role in climate. He is the author or co-author of more than 75 refereed scientific publications.

Joyce is involved in a number of research programs at the Institution and in the international oceanographic community. A senior scientist in the Physical Oceanography Department, he is a leader of the CLIvar MOde Water Dynamic Experiment (CLIMODE), a program begun in October 2004 to study the dynamics of cold water formed in the winter just south of the Gulf Stream. How this water mixes and interacts with the atmosphere and other layers of the ocean is poorly understood and is important to understanding climate change in the North Atlantic.

He was director of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment hydrographic program office from 1989 to 1996, and was a member of the NOAA Climate Change Data and Detection Advisory Panel from 1993 to 2000. He has served as associate editor of the Journal of Physical Oceanography and the Journal of Geophysical Research, and was co-editor of a special volume of the journal Deep-Sea Research on warm core rings. Joyce was chair of the WHOI Marine Operations Committee from 1994 to 1998, and has made more than 25 research cruises.

“Terry has extensive experience as a scientist and program administrator, and is well-respected in the research community,” said WHOI Executive Vice President and Director of Research James Luyten.” He is committed to advancing observational studies and ocean modeling as a whole.”

Joyce has been affiliated with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since 1972, when he was a postdoctoral investigator. He was appointed assistant scientist in 1973, associate scientist in 1977, and was awarded tenure in 1981. He was appointed senior scientist in 1986, and served as chair of the Physical Oceanography Department from 1998 to 2002. He has held the Paul M. Fye Chair for Excellence in Oceanography at the Institution since January 2003.

Joyce received a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Rose Polytechnic Institute, now Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, in Indiana in 1968 and a Sc.D. degree in physical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography and Oceanographic Engineering in 1972.

WHOI established four Ocean Institutes in 2000 to encompass interdisciplinary research of significant concern to the public and policymakers. The mission of the Ocean Institutes is to provide a broad base of the most recent scientific knowledge and make it accessible to decision-makers who can use it to save lives, stimulate economic growth, and enhance the quality of life. Communication of research findings to the public is central to the missions of WHOI Ocean Institutes.

WHOI is a private, independent marine research and engineering, and higher education organization located in Falmouth, MA. Its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, the Institution is organized into five departments, interdisciplinary institutes and a marine policy center, and conducts a joint graduate education program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.