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Engaging the public in polar research and education to foster awareness of climate change impacts on the unique natural, cultural, and societal features of the Polar Regions.

  • By highlighting the Polar Regions as an exemplar of the urgency of climate change, the Polar Forum strengthens the role of UC Davis as a world leader in environmental education.
  • The Forum engages the community through unique outreach events, bridges the gap between UC Davis’s world-class polar research expertise and the public, and acts as a conduit of expertise on polar issues to the media, policymakers and the University of California system.

The Polar Regions are characterized by unique high-latitude systems that are at the forefront of climate change, and may serve as sentinals of future changes at lower latitudes. By emphasizing the relevance of polar climate change to mid-latitude systems, the Polar Forum will cultivate creative insights and opportunities for the development of climate solutions that benefit people in California and beyond.

UC Davis has breadth and depth of domestic and international polar research, currently housing 42 faculty members, staff, post-doctoral scholars, and graduate students with recent, ongoing, or planned future educational and research activities in the Arctic or Antarctic. Polar science and research at UC Davis encompasses a uniquely broad array of disciplines – from sea ice dynamics and atmospheric chemistry, to paleoclimatology, anthropology, and Native American studies.

Director

Eric Post, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, specializes in the ecological consequences of climate change and the impact of climate change on wildlife conservation. Post completed his Ph.D. in biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He founded and served as director of the Polar Center at The Pennsylvania State University, where he was a professor of biology before joining the UC Davis faculty in 2016. Contact post@ucdavis.edu

Director for Programing and Engagement

Pernille Sporon Boving is currently an academic coordinator in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology. Boving received her Cand. Scient. (M.S.) in Behavioral Ecology from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Contact boving@ucdavis.edu

Steering Committee

Christyann Darwent, John Darwent, Erika Ebel, Amanda Frazier, Gabrielle Nevitt, William Pevec, Eric Post, Pernille Sporon Boving, Anne Todgham, and Jesika Reimer.

Affiliated Faculty and Researchers

Hosted by the John Muir Institute of The Environment the Polar Forum will engage faculty affiliates, researchers and students from across the UC Davis campus. The Polar Forum is actively seeking interested faculty affiliates. Contact us to express interest.