Principal Expedition Leader: John Englander is a Co-founder of the Rising Seas Institute. He is an oceanographer and author of two highly acclaimed books about climate change and sea level rise. His latest work is Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward (The Science Bookshelf 2021). John has led many expeditions to Greenland and the High Arctic, including dives under the polar ice cap. He has delivered high level briefings about rising sea level to the U.S. Congress, at the US Naval Academy, to the leaders of all eight Arctic nations Coast Guard services, the US Air Force, and corporate executives.
Senior Scientist/Expedition Founder: Dr. Robert “Bob” Corell is a Co-founder of the Rising Seas Institute and began leading the Greenland expeditions in 2001. He is a globally recognized scientist with expertise on climate change, sea level rise and the polar regions. Bob serves as a program leader and scientific advisor to the eight-nation Arctic Council on climate change and has served as a senior climate change advisor to the White House for both Republican and Democratic administrations starting with President Reagan. He was recognized with the other scientists for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Senior Expedition Leader: Dr. Ralph Rayner is an Associate Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. He has responsibility for industry outreach for the Integrated Ocean Observing System at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and serves on the advisory bodies of Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Ralph has led numerous expeditions to Greenland.
Expedition Leader: Craig McLean served in NOAA for more than 40 years attaining the rank of Captain in NOAA’s uniformed Commissioned Corps and as a member of the Senior Executive Service. He has worked in marine operations, marine law, and policy leadership positions at, on, and under the sea. At the time of his retirement in 2022 he held three positions: NOAA Assistant Administrator for Research, acting NOAA Chief Scientist, and the US head of delegation to the UN’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, a position in which he served for eleven years. In this role he was instrumental in expanding global ocean mapping and measurements, and in creating the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Expedition Leader/Science Communication and Education Specialist: Sharon Gray is a marine scientist with expertise in sea level rise. She began her career as a research scientist for government agencies, aquariums, and educational institutions, and has spent more than a decade educating and spreading awareness about climate change and sea level rise through writing and developing educational content and curriculum. Sharon has degrees in biology, chemistry, and psychology from Eckerd College as well as advanced SCUBA diving certifications. She is currently writing a book on sea level rise.
National Security Specialist: Stuart Gold is a Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve and served over twenty years as an intelligence professional in the civil service where he supported operations and decisionmakers at the tactical to strategic level. He left civil service and is currently an entrepreneur residing in Atlanta, GA. Stuart holds a BA in Justice from American University, a Masters in National Security Studies from Georgetown University, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Glaciology Specialist: Dr. Jason Box is a Glaciologist, and has been Professor in Glaciology at The Geologic Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) with over 70 journal articles at GEUS since 2013. Jason has been on 30 Greenland expeditions, spent over a year camping on the ice and has installed and maintained a network of more than 20 automatic weather stations on Greenland’s inland ice.
Climatology Specialist: Dr. William “Liam” Colgan is an expert in climate and sea level change with a focus on understanding the response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to recent climate change. Liam has spent over ten years working with both in-situ measurements and satellite observations of Greenland’s ice. His ice-loss estimates directly contributed to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Liam is currently affiliated with the Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland.
Energy/National Security Specialist: Dr. Julia Nesheiwat is a recognized expert in energy, environment, climate change, and national security issues as a public servant, academic, former military officer, and US diplomat. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and has served as Commissioner on the US Arctic Research Commission reporting to the White House and Congress on domestic and international Arctic issues. Julia served over twenty years in international energy & environmental diplomacy, climate change issues and national security serving in the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
Geophysics Specialist: Eric J. Rignot is a Chancellor Professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, and Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Eric’s primary research interests are glaciology, climate change, radar remote sensing, ice sheet numerical modeling, interferometric synthetic-aperture radar, radio echo sounding, and ice-ocean interactions. His research group focuses on understanding the interactions of ice and climate, ice sheet mass balance, ice-ocean interactions in Greenland and Antarctica, and current/future contributions of ice sheets to sea level change.
Ocean Temperature Specialist: Dr. Josh Willis is an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His area of expertise is current sea level rise and measuring ocean temperatures. Josh was the principal investigator for the NASA mission Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG), which studied the ocean temperatures surrounding Greenland and how marine glaciers react to warming water. He has a Ph,D. in Oceanography and an M.S. in Physics, both from the University of California, San Diego.