Environmental studies professor Ross Virginia unexpectedly celebrated the birthday of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia while in Greenland conducting fieldwork with graduate students, environmental studies professor Matt Ayres said.
Ayres said that Virginia connected the Grateful Dead with his academic motto, noting the band was the first “open-source rock’ n roll band” and that those involved with science must increasingly bring “that sense of community spirit” to their work.
Virginia, who began work at the College in 1992 as a chair of the environmental studies program, said his initial academic interests focused on the ecosystem’s response to climate change. Ross looked at the effect of various organisms on soil’s nutrient cycle. He conducted his fieldwork in hot deserts in the southwestern United States and in Alaska’s Arctic tundra.
While studying which elements of soil determine which organisms can live, Virginia said he became interested in ecosystems with soil but without plants. Upon hearing this, one of his colleagues recommended he look at Antarctica.
Since then, Virginia’s academic focus shifted to cold and icy regions, and he spent two years in Antarctica from 1989 to 1990.
Virginia said that 2007, the International Polar Year, was a landmark year for him because he began conceiving ways to apply academic knowledge to political decisions and the policymaking process, which he noted aligns with the slogan for the International Polar Year was “from knowledge to action.”
Aware of the considerable level of interest in polar studies at the College, Virginia said that he wanted to find ways that the College could become more involved with the International Polar Year. He helped organize various conferences and programs, which he noted inspired him to focus his efforts on connecting academia to the practical world.
Virginia began working with various education and outreach programs to foster interest in the arctic region among younger generations.
Virginia said that the Dartmouth Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Ph.D. program, an interdisciplinary program that provides opportunities to graduate students for research in polar studies, came from these efforts.
“I can influence science through my research and articles, but a big part of having a legacy and having this continue is to get younger people interested,” he said.
Currently his team works with high school students in Greenland, Denmark and the United States during a three-week-long summer camp on the Arctic environment. He noted the importance of finding ways to share scientific knowledge with different audiences.
His dedication to translate scholarly findings into practical changes culminated with his participation in the United States’ 1998-2000 chairmanship on the Arctic Council, an international forum to address environmental issues in the Arctic regions.
Virginia will be co-leading the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, which aims to engage in research to produce findings that policymakers could use in making important decisions regarding Arctic regions.
He said that the Fulbright Arctic Initiative seeks to increase awareness of the Arctic within the United States, as the public does not generally know that the United States contains a relatively large region of the Arctic. In addition, Virginia noted that the initiative aims to improve awareness of climate change and plans to reach out to institutions across the nation, organize exhibitions and publish articles to inform the public.
The initiative will tackle the issue of fresh water supply in communities in northern regions as it is directly related to the wellness of both human and animals, he said. The initiative also plans to address exploration of natural resource sites, development of sustainable options for renewable energy and the establishment of policies and regulations for large-scale petroleum operations.
Virginia’s team published an article that proves the existence of groundwater in the subsurface level of ice in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, yesterday in the international science journal Nature. He noted that the finding is significant in part because Antarctica’s environment has been deemed to be most similar to that of Mars. Therefore, the possibility of groundwater and existence of bacteria in this region will shed more light on our understanding of Mars’ ecosystem. He also noted that the work would expand our knowledge of the marine biology system in Antarctica’s shores.
“It also causes us to rethink how the Dry Valleys and Antarctica form as a habitat,” he said. “New science can derive from the study trying to figure out how the Dry Valleys operate.”
Ayres said that he and Virginia quickly built a rapport, as they shared similar interests and a similar philosophy towards researching and teaching. She said that working with people like Ross is one of her favorite parts of being a Dartmouth professor.
He emphasized that Virginia, in addition to being brilliant, is meticulous and possesses a great work ethic.
Earth sciences professor Meredith Kelly said that Virginia is an outgoing and welcoming colleague. She said that upon learning that her specialty also lies in Arctic studies, Virginia emailed her immediately and invited her to join the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship.
Outside his academic work, Virginia said that he has passion for music, declaring himself a “Deadhead,” a term used to describe a fan of the Grateful Dead.
He enjoys learning about history, he said, and is fascinated by what easily accessible places today looked like to the people who arrived there for the first time.
“I try to bring some personal part of me into the classroom because it is an important way to empower students to bring what they have to class,” Virginia said. “We are talking about science but still talk about art and history because it’s all connected — that’s what [a] liberal [arts] education is all about.”
