Dr. Anne E. Giblin will be delivering the keynote address on the opening day of the ninth GCC. The talk will take place at the her home base at the Marine Biological Laboratory, also the conference venue. Her talk, “From salt marshes to arctic tundra: Some of the surprises we are seeing with climate change”, will have an audience of one hundred graduate students from all areas of climate change research.

Dr. Giblin’s abstract and biographical background are below.

Abstract: I started my career interested in the impacts that humans were having on natural systems.  My thesis was on the cycling of heavy metals in sewage sludge on a salt marsh.  I moved from sewage sludge to the transport of N from septic effluent into coastal waters for my post-doc.  I then later spent nearly 20 years examining nitrogen cycling in sediments as part of the Boston sewage outfall relocation project.  In spite of spending much of my career “going down the toilet” my interest in N cycling lead me to study N cycling in unimpacted areas such as the continental shelf and two long-term projects focused on climate change.  In Plum Island we are examining how sea-level rise is impacting coastal marshes.  In the Arctic we are seeing how the impact of climate change is having some unexpected impacts.  While my research portfolio is eclectic, I’ve enjoyed the mix of basic and applied research, short and long-term studies, and single investigator and large projects.  I’ll talk a bit about how to decide what is right for you and whether this diverse strategy could possibly work in these more challenging times.

Biographical sketch: Dr. Anne E. Giblin is a Senior Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Ecosystems Center, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She received a PhD from Boston University and a BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She joined the staff of the MBL’s Ecosystems Center in 1983 and was named a Senior Scientist in 2003. Giblin is an Adjunct Professor in the Brown University-MBL Partnership and Graduate Program in Biological and Environmental Sciences, and graduate faculty at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. She is Lead Principal Investigator of the Plum Island Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research site in northern Massachusetts, part of a national network of research sites created by the National Science Foundation. Additionally, she is a member of the executive committee overseeing research at the Arctic Long Term Ecological Research site in northern Alaska.