Dr. Richard B. Alley
Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences and
Associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute
at The Pennsylvania State University

Richard is a premier scholar in the field of climate change with numerous papers in high profile journals such as Nature and Science. He chaired the National Research Council panel on Abrupt Climate Change, which provided key data and interpretations helping to demonstrate that regional to global climate changes larger than any experienced by agricultural or industrial humans have occurred repeatedly in the past. His recent book, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future, Princeton University Press, 2000 (winner of national Phi Beta Kappa Science book award and a 2001 Choice Award winner, released in paperback 2002) is indicative of his ability and desire to translate this knowledge to the general public. Richard is also an experienced field scientist with three field seasons in Antarctica, five in Greenland and two in Alaska. He has testified before Vice President Gore (1994), and before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (2003). Richard is an informative, knowledgeable speaker who will provide important and stimulating discussion about one of the world’s most pressing issues – global climate change.

Dr. Richard B. Alley is Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences and Associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. There he teaches and conducts research on the paleoclimatic records, dynamics, and sedimentary deposits of large ice sheets, as a means of understanding the climate system and its history, and projecting future changes in climate and sea level. Dr. Alley has spent three field seasons in Antarctica, six in Greenland, and three in Alaska. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and has been awarded a Packard Fellowship, a Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Horton Award of the American Geophysical Union Hydrology Section, the Easterbrook Award of the Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology section
of the Geological Society of America, the Wilson Teaching Award and the Mitchell Innovative Teaching Award of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and the Faculty Scholar Medal of the Pennsylvania State University. His book on abrupt climate change, The Two-Mile Time Machine, was the national Phi Beta Kappa Science Award winner for 2001. Dr. Alley chaired a recent U.S. National Research Council study on Abrupt Climate Change, and serves, or has served, on many other advisory panels and steering committees. He was invited to breakfast with a sitting U.S. Vice President to discuss climate change, and gave invited testimony to a U.S. Senate committee. He has authored or coauthored more than 160 refereed publications, and is a "highly cited" researcher as indexed by ISI. Dr. Alley is happily married with two children, two cats, one ranch house, a minivan, and two bicycles, and resides in State College, PA, USA, where he coaches recreational soccer and occasionally plays some. He received his Ph.D. in Geology, with a minor in Materials Science, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987, and earned an MSc degree (1983) and BSc degree (1980) in Geology from the Ohio State University.