The Institute of Arctic Studies (IAS) in the Dickey Center for International Understanding is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Matthew Druckenmiller, an internationally recognized Arctic climate scientist and science-policy leader, as its new Arctic Innovation Fellow. His hire reinforces the Institute’s distinctive focus on advancing more inclusive, policy-relevant Arctic scholarship with and for northern communities amid accelerating environmental change and geopolitical challenges.
Druckenmiller was most recently in international news as lead editor of the 2025 Arctic Report Card, a widely cited annual assessment of Arctic environmental conditions released by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in partnership with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) on December 16, 2025. Media coverage of the 2025 Arctic Report Card by NPR and the New York Times quote Dr. Druckenmiller highlighting both the record-setting warm Arctic temperatures and the rapid transformation of winter conditions observed over the past year, with rain increasingly replacing snow across much of the Arctic. Each of these changes, he notes, have significant implications for the future of Arctic ecosystems, infrastructure, and communities.
In addition to his lead editor role, Dr. Druckenmiller is director and Lead Principal Investigator (PI) of the US National Science Foundation’s Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO), coordinating scholarly collaborations across a nationwide portfolio of studies on Arctic systems, resilience, and human-environment interactions. As Co-PI, Druckenmiller also co-leads the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA) program and serves as Vice President of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), advancing international cooperation in Arctic and polar research. He was also a co-lead of the two-year, NSF-funded “Indigenizing Arctic Research” collaboration with the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth and both Arctic Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues at the University of Alaska Anchorage, the University of Northern Iowa, and the University of Victoria.
“Dr. Druckenmiller brings a rare credibility and expertise at the intersection of Arctic climate science, policy engagement, international collaboration, and knowledge co-production with northern communities,” said Dr. Melody Brown Burkins (Guarini ’95 ’98), director of the Institute of Arctic Studies. “His work will expand policy-relevant opportunities for Arctic scholarship by a diversity of Dartmouth faculty and students while strengthening our institutional partnerships that center Arctic community engagement in both knowledge creation and decision-making.”
Druckenmiller looks forward to working with faculty, students, and Arctic partners to advance scholarship that informs Arctic and polar policy on issues of climate, food security, energy transitions, cultural preservation, and human rights, among other issues. He will also join the IAS team in their work to support both graduate and undergraduate students pursuing studies and careers in Arctic science, policy, and diplomacy. Finally, he will work to strengthen Dartmouth’s leadership in creating systems for much-needed international Arctic “convergence” research that supports multidisciplinary collaborations that center ethical engagement and knowledge co-production with Arctic communities and Arctic Indigenous Peoples to create more informed, more impactful, scholarship.
The appointment of the IAS Arctic Innovation Fellow, made possible by a generous anonymous donation to the Arctic Innovation Fund, comes as governments and institutions increasingly look to the Arctic as a bellwether for global climate risk and a site of increasing geopolitical tensions around Arctic sovereignty. Dr. Druckenmiller gained his BS and MS in environmental engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD in sea ice geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Druckenmiller will spend his first year at Dartmouth splitting his time on campus and in Boulder, CO, continuing projects at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
