Attending an International Glaciological Society (IGS) Symposium in Höfn, Iceland, in 2015.
I am currently a Professor Emeritus having retired in September of 2023. My current academic activity is directed toward doing research, helping to supervise graduate and undergraduate students and occasionally teaching a course. Currently, I have two research grants from the National Science Foundation which involve research into how ice shelves of Antarctica (and elsewhere) evolve under changing surface melting conditions, such as the filling and draining of surface lakes. I have two National Science Foundation proposals under review. One involves cryoseismological research into the microseism of the Arctic. The other involves compressive, rumpled boundaries of ice shelves in Antarctica.
I serve on the academic advisory committees of several current students in the department, and I do my best to provide excellent scientific guidance. Several of the students are working in seismology or cryoseismology with my colleague Prof. Sunyung (Sunny) Park. Several are working in various areas of geophysical fluid dynamics with my colleagues Profs. Malte Jansen and Noboru Nakamura.
I grew up in the midwest (primarily Cleveland, Ohio) and went to college and graduate school(s) on the East coast (Brown University, University of Maine and Princeton University). In 1983 I joined the faculty at the University of Chicago, where I have remained ever since. During my graduate student days and while at University of Chicago, I managed to have 13 field trips to Antarctica to investigate various aspects of its glaciology and oceanography. My most recent trip to Antarctica, to the McMurdo Ice Shelf, was in 2017. Most of my research at the university over the past 4 decades has followed my interests in glaciology and the climate dynamics of ice sheets.
I am happily married to Linda Ann MacAyeal. Together, we have 6 children and 3 pre-school age grandchildren (living in Wisconsin and Oregon) between us.
Henry, my grandson, at the DoorCounty Forgeworks run by Ric Furrer.
I drive a Tesla model Y which has the name “Barbinator”. All Tesla cars must have a name on the Tesla phone app. Here is a picture of me in my Ken outfit by the Barbinator:
Doug and the Barbinator.