Melody Brown Burkins

|Adjunct Professor
Academic Appointments
  • Director, Institute of Arctic Studies

  • Sr Assoc Director, John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding

  • UArctic Chair in Science Diplomacy and Inclusion

  • Governing Board Member & Fellow, International Science Council (ISC)

Connect with Us

Melody Brown Burkins, PhD, is the Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies, Senior Associate Director in the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth. In January 2022, she was also named the UArctic Chair in Science Diplomacy and Inclusion. With over 30 years of experience as a polar scientist working in academia and governance, she is an advocate for policy-engaged scholarship, experiential education, and the support of science policy and diplomacy initiatives advancing sustainability, inclusion, and gender equality in the Arctic and around the world. 

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Contact

603-646-2053
Haldeman Center, Room 146
HB 6048

Education

  • Ph.D. Dartmouth
  • M.S. Dartmouth
  • B.S. Yale

Selected Publications

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Speaking Engagements

  • "Fostering International Research and Collaboration in 2023 and Beyond," Special Session of the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), hosted by Brooks Hanson, AGU Vice President for Science, Washington DC, and Guy Brasseur, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany; Panelists: Melody Brown Burkins, Dartmouth, Hanover, NH; Maria Zuber, MIT, Cambridge, MA and The White House, Washington, DC; Alain Schuhl, Director General for Science at CNRS, Paris, France; Alik Ismail-Zadeh, Senior Research Fellow, Former Secretary General of the Internal Union for Geodesy and Geophysics, KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany; Rees Kassen, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of Ottawa, Canada, December 12, 2022.

  • "Is the Role of Arctic Stakeholders Evolving?" moderated by former Ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx with panelists François Delhaye, Director, Directorate of Economic Affairs, Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Sólrún Svandal, Senior Advisor on Arctic Affairs, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Iceland; Geneviève Brisson, Delegate General, Québec Government Office in Brussels; René van Hell, Director, Arctic Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands; Melody Brown Burkins, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth; 2022 Arctic Futures meeting hosted by International Polar Foundation, Brussels, Belgium; November 29, 2022.

Selected Works & Activities

Steering Committee and Host Committee Member, 4th International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV)

Member, International Science Council (ISC) Committee on Freedom & Responsibility in Science (CFRS)

Editorial Oversight Committee, ISC-Nature Working Scientist Podcasts on Diversity in Science

Member, UNESCO Global Independent Expert Group on Universities and the 2030 Agenda (EGU2030)

Invited Participant and Moderator, Circling the Arctic: Security and the Rule of Law in a Changing NorthCenter for Ethics and the Rule of Law & Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2020

Founding Member, UArctic Gender in the Arctic Knowledge Production Thematic Network, 2020

Advisory Board, Global Assessment Report (GAR), United Nations' Office of Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), 2020

Governing Board Member and ISC Fellow, International Science Council (ISC), 2018-present

Chair, U.S. National Academies' Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO), 2019-2021

Chair, U.S. National Committee for Geological Sciences (USNC-GS), 2017-2020

Invited Participant and SPIDER Advisory Board Member, Global Meeting of the Foreign Ministries Science & Technology Advice Network (FMSTAN) and Science Policy in Diplomacy and External Relations (SPIDER) Network, Vienna, Austria, November 25-26, 2019.

Invited Participant & Speaker: 2019 STRINGS Workshop: Steering Research and Innovation for Global Goals, University of Sussex; London, November 2019

Invited Speaker for Women's Equality Day, U.S. Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (US-CRREL), August 30, 2019.

Invited Speaker, "Inclusive Science Diplomacy," American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Center for Science and Diplomacy and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) "Train the Trainers" Science Diplomacy and Leadership Workshop, Trieste, Italy, August 27-29, 2019.

Invited Participant, "Sustainability Science 2.0" Workshop of the US Global Hub for Future Earth and Science and Technology for Sustainability Program of the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, June 21, 2019.

Invited Panelist & SPIDER Advisory Board Member, "STI Diplomacy for the Sustainable Development Goals," International Forum for Science and Technology Diplomacy (IFSTD), Muscat, Oman, February 9-13, 2019

UArctic Observer to the Arctic Council Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) and Senior Arctic Officials (SAO) Meetings, Rovaniemi, Finland, 29 October–2 November 2018

Lead Organizer & Host, "Science and Diplomacy in the Arctic" Leadership Conference and Model Arctic Council Simulation, John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, June 26-30, 2017

Vice Lead, UArctic Model Arctic Council Thematic Network (2017-present); Member, UArctic Science Diplomacy Thematic Network (2018-present)

Interview: "Geology & Diplomacy," The Foreign Policy Project Podcast, January 12, 2017

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