Alfred Scott McLaren

Captain Alfred Scott McLaren received his Ph.D. in the Physical Geography of the Polar Regions from the University of Colorado Boulder (1986), an M.Phil. in Polar Studies from Cambridge University (Peterhouse), England (1982), and a M.S. in International Affairs from George Washington University (1968). A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a B.S. in Engineering (1955), the U.S. Naval War College (1968), and the U.S. Navy Major Shore Commanders Course (1978), Captain McLaren is President Emeritus (1996-2000), of the world-famed, 117-year-old Explorers Club, a nonprofit organization founded in 1904 to promote scientific exploration and field research, where he has also served as a vice president, director, and publisher of The Explorers Journal. In 2000, he received The Explorers Club’s Lowell Thomas Medal for Ocean Exploration and in 2012, The Explorers Club’s highest honor, The Explorers Medal, for “his extraordinary contributions to Arctic exploration and deep-sea research, including the first survey of the entire Siberian Continental Shelf.” He is also President Emeritus of the 87-year-old American Polar Society. He is a former director of The Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M, and Director Emeritus of the Lindbergh Foundation. From 2004 until 2014, he served as a director and partner of Sub Aviator Systems LLC, and senior pilot of its revolutionary new dep-diving submersible, the Super Aviator. He is an instrument-rated private pilot and is SCUBA qualified. Captain McLaren is a Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America. He is also a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, the Arctic Club of Cambridge, the Scottish Arctic Club, the Cambridge Society, the Peterhouse Society, the Socíeté Arctique Française de Paris, the U.S. Naval Institute, the American Geophysical Union, the National Geographic Society, the Canadian Arctic Circle Club, The Antarctican Society, Rotary International, the Naval Submarine League and Sharkhunters International. He is a former member of the Cosmos and National Press Clubs. His first book, Unknown Waters: A First-Hand Account of the Historic Under-Ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf, by USS Queenfish (SSN-651) was published by the University of Alabama Press in January of 2008. It received a full-page review by William Broad in the “Science” section of the New York Times on 18 March 2008 and was chosen as a “Notable Naval Book of 2008” by the U.S. Naval Institute in 2009. It is available in hardback, paperback, and as an audio and kindle book on Amazon.com as is his second book, Silent and Unseen: On Patrol in Three Cold War Attack Submarines, published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press during the spring of 2015. His third book, “Emergency Deep, Cold War Missions of a Submarine Commander,” covers his command of USS Queenfish (SSN 651) from 1969 to 1973. It was recently published by the University of Alabama Press in May of 2021. From 1991 to 1996, Captain McLaren was President of Science Service, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering public understanding of science. In this capacity, he directed the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and the International Science and Engineering Fair and served as publisher of the weekly magazine, Science News. Between 1991 and 1995, he was adjunct research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and a principal investigator on global climate change research grants from both the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. From 1983 through 1991, he was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he earned a Ph.D. in physical geography of the Polar Regions, which is his principal area of scientific research. He was also co-founder and chief scientist from 1983 to 1996, of Arctic Analysts of Boulder, Colorado, an off-campus research company that analyzed U.S. Navy submarine collected under-ice draft data for the Arctic Submarine Laboratory, San Diego; the Office of Naval Research; the Army Cold Regions Engineering Laboratory, Dartmouth; Sandia National Laboratories; NOAA, and NSF. At UC Boulder, he was a senior research associate, and finally, full research professor at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and an associate teaching and research professor in the Department of Geography. From 1986 through 1991 he was one of three co-principal investigators on an $8.3-million Office of Naval Research University Initiative five-year grant for Arctic Ocean-Atmosphere-Ice Systems Studies. His identification of late summer ice velocity reversal in the Beaufort Gyre, subsequently called the "Arctic finding of the decade," resulted in his being recommended for an Office of Naval Research Scientific Achievement Award. He was honored as “A Leader in Science” by The Scientist magazine in 1994. He is the author of more than 50 research papers relating to Arctic sea ice and climate change in scientific professional journals. As a naval officer from 1955 to 1981, Captain McLaren made three Arctic expeditions on nuclear attack submarines, one on board the USS Seadragon (SSN-584) during the first submerged transit of the Northwest Passage during the summer of 1960; two others on the USS Queenfish (SSN-651): a Davis Strait cruise during the winter of 1967, and a North Pole expedition during the summer of 1970 that included the first survey under ice of the entire Siberian Continental Shelf (5,200 km). He commanded the Queenfish during the latter expedition and for a total of four years. He was subsequently honored, in 1983, with the Socíeté de Geographie de Paris’ Silver Medal for Polar Exploration and La Medaille de la Ville De Paris (Echelon Argent). A veteran of more than 20 Cold War submarine operations, Captain McLaren’s awards as a Cold War submarine captain include: The Distinguished Service Medal, the nation's highest peacetime award; two Legions of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, four Navy Unit Citations, and promotion to the rank of Captain two years in advance of his contemporaries. Other tours of duty included gunnery and ASW officer on the destroyer USS Gregory (DD-802), weapons officer on the diesel electric attack submarine USS Greenfish (SS-351); diving officer, navigator and chief engineer on world’s fastest submarine, USS Skipjack (SSN-585); command watch officer during a lengthy Cold War mission on USS Greenling (SSN-614), and pre-commissioning/commissioning executive and later, Commanding Officer of USS Queenfish (SSN-651). He also served at the U.S. Naval War College (student and instructor), operations and chief staff officer at Submarine Development Group Two, operations and plans officer on the staff of Commander Submarine Forces Pacific, and Commanding Officer of a major Department of Defense scientific laboratory of 3200 scientists and engineers and a billion-dollar budget, the U.S. Naval Underwater Systems Center, headquartered at Newport, R.I. He retired as a Captain (O-6) in 1981. In recent years, Captain McLaren has been a frequent study leader and lecturer on multiple cruises to the North Pole, the Canadian, Greenlandic, Norwegian, and Russian Arctic, the North Atlantic, the Antarctic, the Black, Red, White, and Mediterranean Seas; the Indian Ocean, the coast of South America, the British Isles, the Norwegian coast, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Russian Far East, Siberian Coast, and Arctic islands. He qualified as a pilot of the Deep Worker submersible in 1997. He completed lengthy dives during 1999 to both R.M.S. Titanic and the Rainbow Hydrothermal Vents near the Azores, using the deep-diving Russian MIR submersibles. He also served during the summer of 2000 as a team leader and lecturer during a series of dives off British Columbia, using the Canadian-built Aquarius and Dual Deep Worker 350 submersibles and ROVs, in search of the giant octopus and rare six-gill shark. During June 2001, Captain McLaren participated as a diver/observer in “The First Manned Dives to the German battleship DKM Bismarck,” using the deep-diving Russian MIR submersibles to depths of almost 4,800 meters beneath the sea. He returned to the Bismarck wreck site during July/early August 2002, making a second dive as part of an” Operation Bismarck” team, which completely filmed the warship wreck site using high definition TV cameras provided by Woods Hole. In February 2003, following successful completion of training at the world’s first Underwater Flight School in the Bahamas, he became the first deep-sea explorer to be licensed as a “Pilot in Command” of submersible designer and builder Graham Hawkes’ new high-performance “winged” submersible Deep Flight Aviator, which is rated to fly like an aircraft under water to depths of 500 meters. During July of 2003 Captain McLaren returned to the wreck of R.M.S. Titanic as a diver and lecturer on “Operation Titanic,” also aboard the Russian MIR submersibles. He participated in the expedition to the Nine Degrees North hydrothermal vents in the Pacific during September of 2003 and in May of 2004 was a “Pilot in Command” of the Deep Flight Aviator submersible during a series of marine science-related expeditions throughout the Sea of Cortez. During 2008, 2009 and 2010, as Senior Pilot of the deep-diving Super Aviator submersible, he was part of the Sub Aviator Systems team that used its myriad capabilities for oceanographic research in Lake Tahoe, California; off Lahaina, Maui; the Caribbean, Monterey Bay, and the Florida Keys. As President of the American Polar Society, he recently initiated and organized major conferences on climate change at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2013) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (2015)