Jay Austin

Why I'm running for the IAGLR Board of Directors

I believe in the mission of IAGLR—the promotion and propagation of research on the Laurentian Great Lakes and other large lakes of the world. Over the last 17 years, IAGLR has played an important role in my professional development, keeping me abreast of current research, as a venue for my own research and that of my students, and fostering my professional development through the expansion of my professional network. This has been due to both the annual IAGLR meetings and through JGLR, for which I have served as an associate editor for the last 12 years.

Previous Board Experience
I served on the Vestry of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Duluth for three years (essentially the board of directors for the church). Served a 3-year term as department head for the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UMD. Have served as director of graduate studies for both physics and the water resources science program at UMD.

Bio

Jay Austin is a physical limnologist (the study of inland water bodies), specializing in observational approaches to develop a better understanding of physical processes in deep lakes. He has wide-ranging interests across a broad range of temporal and spatial scales, including winter structure and processes, the role of ice, springtime convection, the response of large lakes to climate change, seasonal connectivity within lakes, and the impact of physical processes on ecosystem function. He has undergraduate degrees in math and physics, and did his graduate work in the Joint Program in Physical Oceanography at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He has been at UM Duluth since 2005, serving in both the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Large Lakes Observatory. He currently is a co-director of graduate studies for the University of Minnesota’s Water Resources Research program and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of Great Lakes Research since 2011.