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2025 Steinbach Visiting Scholars

Dr. Justin Mankin

Dartmouth College
Geology and Geophysics
August 4-5

Prof. Justin: Mankin is an associate professor of geography at Dartmouth and director of the Climate Modeling & Impacts Group. Beyond editorial duties with AGU and AMS (Earth’s Future and Journal of Climate) he serves on a number of professional service committees including with US CLIVAR AMS CVC UCAR the National Climate Assessment and the National Academies. His previous career was as an intelligence officer working in South Asia and the Middle East and he received the 2024 American Geophysical Union Global Environmental Change Early Career Award. He holds degrees from Columbia (BA, MPA) the London School of Economics (MSc) and Stanford (PhD).

Scheduled Talks

  • August 4th, 3pm: Institution-wide seminar at Redfield Auditorium. (BBQ social & networking will follow)
    Documenting and projecting the human costs of climate change
  • August 5th, 10:30am- 11:30am: Department-wide seminar at Clark 507
    The future of continental water availability
  • August 5th, 12pm-1pm: Students Pizza Lunch and informal Q&A at the Carriage House

Dr. Kelly Benoit-Bird

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Biology
July 18th-19th

Kelly Benoit-Bird is a Senior Scientist and the Research Chair at MBARI, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. In her research, she uses sound to explore how animals make their living in pelagic marine ecosystems from the surface to the deep sea, resulting in more than 80 peer-reviewed articles on animals ranging from copepods to blue whales. She collaborates extensively with science communicators to share her work with diverse audiences, resulting in features at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the American Museum of Natural History. Kelly received a B.S. in Aquatic Ecology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa before a short stint as a post-doctoral fellow at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. Dr. Benoit-Bird was a Professor of Oceanography at Oregon State University before moving to MBARI in 2016 with her husband and research partner and their most important collaboration, their school-aged son. She is a recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Medwin Prize in Acoustical Oceanography, a Kavli Frontiers Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences, and a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly known as 'the Genius Award'). She is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and is currently serving as an elected board member for the Society.

Scheduled Talks

  • July 18th: Department-wide seminar, 12:00pm in Redfield Auditorium
    Resolving the Food Paradox in the Sea
  • July 18th: Networking Barbecue, 1:00pm Redfield Lower Lawn
  • July 19th:  Institution-wide seminar, 10:00am in Clark 507
    Diel Vertical Migration Affects the Health of the Planet (and the new tools that are helping us measure how much)
  • July 19th: Informal Q&A for students, 11:00am in Clark 507