Meet the Scientists: A

Knut Aagaard University of Washington email

Dr. Aagaard investigates high-latitude oceanic processes and their role in climate. He is currently studying oceanic convection and its relationship to ice distribution; the contribution of the Pacific Ocean to arctic circulation; the role of fresh water from the Arctic Ocean in the control of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic; and the formation of dense water on the continental shelf and its control of ocean stratification. His work involves ocean observations and monitoring as well as analysis, all within a broad regional framework. His research has entailed fieldwork throughout the Arctic Ocean and its adjacent seas and in the subarctic. Dr. Aagaard holds a joint appointment with the School of Oceanography. He has published several books and his research papers appear in a variety of oceanographic and geophysical journals.

Carin Ashjian Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution email

Carin Ashjian received her PhD in Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island in 1991. She held postdoctoral positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Miami, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) before joining the scientific staff in the Biology Department at WHOI in 1996.

Her research focuses on biological-physical associations relative to the distribution of zooplankton and zooplankton rate processes. She uses optical (Video Plankton Recorder), acoustic, and traditional (nets, lab experiments) methods in her work. She has participated in a number of cruises to the Antarctic and Arctic, including to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, the Norwegian Sea, the NE Water Polynya off of Greenland, the Canada Basin (SHEBA Ice Camp), the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Beaufort Shelf near Barrow, AK.

Her most recent project before BEST focuses on the potential impact of climate change on the formation of bowhead whale prey patches near Barrow, AK and the subsequent influence of changes in whale prey, and hence whale, locations on Iñupiat subsistence whaling.

Kerim Aydin NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center email

Kerim Aydin is the Supervisory Research Fishery Biologist of the Resource Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling Program, Alaska Fisheries Science Center. His current research is focused on modeling predator/prey interactions, both from an individual behavioral standpoint and from a population (food web model) standpoint, on developing data collection techniques for examining marine food webs (e.g. , diet studies and stable isotope examinations of fish communities), and on applying these models in a fisheries management context. He is particularly interested in the stability and complexity of large marine food webs and how structural elements of marine food webs evolve in response to climate variation. He received his PhD in 2000 from the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.