Dr. Joellen Russell is the Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Integrative Science and Professor at the University of Arizona in the Department of Geosciences. She currently serves as chair of the NOAA Science Advisory Board’s Climate Working Group, as an Objective Leader for the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research’s AntarcticClimate21, and on the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Community Earth System Model Advisory Board. Before joining UA, Prof. Russell was a Research Scientist at Princeton University and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Joellen is the mother of two children, 9 and 13. Her children and students’ compassion, kindness, and hard work have convinced her that when it’s their turn, we’ll all be in good hands. Growing up in a tiny fishing village in the arctic, she was always fascinated by the ocean and knew she wanted to be an oceanographer at the age of twelve.