Joe McConnell studies climate and environmental history to understand natural and human-caused changes in the Earth system. He holds degrees from Yale, Stanford, and the
University of Arizona. In his work, Dr. McConnell uses polar ice cores as recorders of past climate
and environmental change, and focuses on the relationship between aerosols and climate change.
His research group has developed and applied methods for making very precise, high-depth-resolution chemical measurements in ice cores. He has applied these methods to cores that he and his colleagues have collected from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets as well as mountain glaciers, leading to records of aerosols extending from today to thousands of years back in time. His research group currently is involved in projects at both poles and in alpine regions in Asia and the Americas.
Joe has been a faculty member at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno NV since 1998. Recent awards include the Inaugural Nazir and Mary Ansari Medal for Excellence in Science (2008) and the Fulbright Traditional Scholars Program: Collaboration in Snow and Ice Chemistry: Industrial Pollution in the Antarctica Peninsula during Recent Centuries (2005/2006). When not doing his research, Joe loves to hike and travel internationally with his family.
