Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

People of the Steffen Group

Konrad Steffen (Curriculum Vitae)

Konrad Steffen

at work

in the field

on vacation

My general interest is the study of processes related to climate and cryosphere interaction in polar and alpine regions based on in-situ and satellite measurements, and using climate system modeling to study their sensitivity. I had an active involvement in the assessment of global sea level change and sensitivity studies of large ice sheets using in situ and modeling results. For the past eight years I was involved in organizing a NASA/NSF initiative called PARCA: Program in Regional Arctic Climate Assessment.

Currently, my research funding is supported by NASA Cryospheric Sciences, NASA/GSFC, and NSF/Arctic System Science for climate system modeling, remote sensing application related to ocean-climate-sea ice interactions, and LIDAR applications in the Arctic. Currently I serve as Chairman for the World Climate Research Program ACSYS Observation Products Panel, Science Steering Committee of the WMO Climate and Cryosphere project, Vice president of the International Commission for Snow and Ice (IAHS), SEARCH science steering committee member, Modeling and Observation Theme Leader at CIRES.

From 2005 to 2012, I was Director of CIRES, which is the largest research unit at the University of Colorado Boulder. I was a CIRES Fellow from 1991 to 2012. My research group is part of the Center for the Study of Earth from Space (CSES), one of the four research centers in CIRES. I am a Professor Emeritus with the Geography Department and now direct the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. I am also a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Sciences in Zurich, Switzerland

Research Associates

Dan McGrath

Dan McGrath is a research associate in the Steffen Research Group.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 2013 with a focus on ice shelf stability on the Antarctic Peninsula. Previously, he received his BA in Geology and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.  His research is broadly focused on cryosphere-climate interactions and more specifically at present, on surface processes of the Greenland Ice Sheet. He has conducted fieldwork around the world, including sites in Greenland, Antarctica, Patagonia and Alaska.

For a list of publications, please see: Publications

Nicolas Bayou

Nicolas Bayou received his M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the School of Mines in Nancy, France. After working for about 10 years in the aerospace industry both in France and the USA, he decided to join CIRES and Dr. Steffen’s team to study Arctic glaciers. His areas of interest are the modeling of interactions between ocean and marine-terminating outlet glaciers and climate change. Aside from his research, Nicolas is in charge of the Greenland Climate Network (GC-Net) data processing. Nicolas is also a passionate all around mountaineer and photographer.