December 9, 2015
Jean Bahr, a UW-Madison professor of geoscience and faculty affiliate of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, has been named president-elect of the American Geosciences Institute. She was welcomed into the role at the Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting in November in Baltimore, Maryland.
Bahr, who holds degrees from Stanford and Yale, is a fellow and was the president of GSA from 2009-2010. She currently is an editor of the AGU journal Water Resources Research. In 2012, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, charged with providing independent scientific and technical oversight of the U.S. Department of Energy's program for managing and disposing of radioactive waste, from high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel to low-level waste such as that generated through research and medical procedures.
The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.
Under Bahr's leadership at GSA, position statements were finalized on Climate Change, Public Investment in Earth Science Research, Role of Government in Mineral and Energy Resources Research, Expanding and Improving Geoscience in Higher Education, the Importance of Teaching Earth Science and Diversity in the Geoscience Community. She also played a key role in strengthening the relationship between GSA and the GSA Foundation.
At UW-Madison, Bahr studies the underground movement of water and contaminants.
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