Thomas Royer
Southeast Alaska: Ancient Gateway to the Americas
About the Speaker
Thomas C. Royer received an A.B. degree in physics and mathematics from Albion College and a M.S. and Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in oceanography. He was on the faculty at the University of Alaska Fairbanks from 1969 through 1996 where he taught physical oceanography and conducted research in the North Pacific. His specialties include waves, ocean circulation and ocean climate change. In 1997 he joined the faculty at the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia where he held the endowed Slover Chair, retiring in 2007. He is professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Old Dominion University. He recently served as the chair of the Science Panel of the North Pacific Research Board, and serves on the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Oil Spill Recovery Institute in Cordova. His interests continue in the physics of coastal and deep ocean processes in the North Pacific. He established the Gulf of Alaska (GAK) hydrography time series near Seward in 1970 for the purpose of understanding better those processes that cause changes in the ocean. This sampling continues by other scientists as a NSF Long Term Ecological Research program. In recent decades he has been using those data and others to describe and understand the seasonal and interannual variations of water temperature, salinity and circulation in the Gulf of Alaska. This has led to work on the freshwater budgets for these waters that include the effects of melting glaciers on Alaska's coastal circulation. He has also worked with fisheries scientists to understand the impacts of global and region climate change on fish populations in waters adjacent to Alaska. His work continues to explore interdisciplinary approaches to addressing ecosystem problems and in the application of new techniques that will allow cost effective measurements of ocean circulation and structure. He carried out a decade of studies in Chesapeake Bay while at Old Dominion University. He now lives at the southern end of the GAK line on the south shore of Maui where he has become involved with local ecological issues including coral reef restoration and freshwater budgets. His active research involves studies of the migration of early settlers to North American. It is based on the premise that they came by sea rather than land.