The Secret Lives of Glaciers
Dr. M Jackson
Tuesday, October 22 at 7 p.m. in the Brooks O’Brien Auditorium/East Academic Building
![M Jackson looking forward and wearing winter clothing, sunglasses, and a wool hat with conifer trees in the background](/images/made/uploads/pages/img/MJackson_300_247shar-80.jpg)
Dr. M Jackson will give a talk exploring what happens to an Icelandic community as their local glaciers disappear. Profoundly hopeful, Jackson’s talk shows how ice influences people just as much as people influence ice.
Dr. M Jackson is a geographer, adventurer, TED Fellow, and National Geographic Society Explorer. Jackson earned a doctorate from the University of Oregon in geography and glaciology, where she examined how climate change transformed people and glacier communities in Iceland. A veteran three-time U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Turkey and Iceland, Jackson currently serves as a U.S. Fulbright Ambassador. She also serves as an Arctic Expert for the National Geographic Society over the last nine years, holds a Masters of Science degree from the University of Montana, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia. She’s worked for over a decade in the Arctic chronicling climate change and communities, guiding backcountry trips and exploring glacial systems. Her 2015 memoir While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change weaves together the parallel stories of what happens when the climates of a family and a planet change. Her 2019 book, The Secret Lives of Glaciers, explores the profound impacts of glacier change on the human and physical geography of Iceland. She is currently at work on In Tangible Ice, a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project partnering with explorers, filmmakers, and scientists that examines the socio-physical dimensions of glacier retreat in near-glacier communities within all eight circumpolar nations. Learn more at drmjackson.com.
Resources
Websites:
Videos:
- Youtube listing
- National Geographic M Jackson (short clip)
- National Geographic Explorer M Jackson
- Glaciers, Gender, and Science: We Need More Stories of Ice. | M Jackson | TEDxMiddlebury
- How glaciers impact community | M Jackson
Classroom Resources:
Books:
- The Secret Lives of Glaciers is available in the Landmark College Library
Excerpt: The Secret Lives of Glaciers explores just what happens when a community’s glaciers slowly disappear. Meticulously detailed, each chapter unfolds complex stories of people and glaciers along the southeastern coast of Iceland, exploring the history of glacier science and the world’s first glacier monitoring program, the power glaciers enact on local society, perceptions by some in the community that glaciers are alive, and the conflicting and intertwined consequences of rapid glacier change on the cultural fabric of the region - The Secret Lives of Glaciers Book Trailer