Research

From glacier hazards and disasters in the Andes, cultural perceptions of icebergs drifting through the North Atlantic Ocean, glacier runoff in the Himalayas, and the history of ice coring and iceberg monitoring in the Arctic and Antarctica, the Glacier Lab analyzes the human experience with ice and the cryosphere, including the history of glaciology.

APPROACHES

Glacier Lab research puts people first to understand larger societal histories and contexts where people interact with glaciers and icebergs. Research seeks to understand forces of inequality and injustices that make glacier change just one among many forces that societies contend with. The lab works to expose how systemic power disparities and the marginalization of certain knowledges can affect people’s ability to address ice loss in their communities. In this way, the lab’s approach to glaciers and climate is through an environmental justice framework grounded in environmental history, political ecology, and science and technology studies (STS).

Lab research also examines how larger narratives of ice loss can help some groups more than others. Narratives shape people’s constructions of and interactions with high-elevation and high-latitude locations. Unfortunately, local people rarely figure substantively into the widespread laments for dying ice. Worse, narratives and storylines about endangered ice can actually feed the forces of conquest, individualism, commodification, consumption, and extraction — the very forces driving global climate change in the first place. Addressing the profound human consequences of the climate crisis and the shrinking cryosphere means the lab is attentive to culture, narratives, framings, and perceptions. Research thus analyzes glaciers and society through the lens of the environmental humanities.

PRINCIPLES

With lab members from History, Geography, Environmental Studies, and Anthropology, research projects are strongly interdisciplinary — and this is a priority for the lab overall. There are collaborations beyond the lab across disciplines and fields, with co-authors who are glaciologists, oceanographers, hydrologists, and climatologists, as well as philosophers and sociologists, just to name a few. There are also collaborations with researchers worldwide, from the USA and Switzerland to Peru and Greenland. The lab also prioritizes inter-generational teamwork to include researchers at different career stages — and especially students — in projects and publications. In short, the lab strives for equity and inclusion among its members, with a commitment to shared opportunities, credit, and professional development.

TOPICS

These are the various Glacier Lab guiding principles and approaches that structure research ethics and practices. The specific themes and topics for research vary widely and constantly shift with new students’ interests and plans. Explore the pages in this section to discover more about what we are studying.

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Skaftafellsjökull, Iceland. Photo by Andrea Willingham