W. Tad Pfeffer

W. Tad Pfeffer is a glaciologist, geophysicist, and photographer at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is a Fellow of the University’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering. Pfeffer’s research is focused on glacier mechanics and dynamics, and particularly on dynamics of ocean-­‐ending glaciers and glacier contributions to sea level. He has done field research for more than 30 years in glacier regions from Alaska to Antarctica to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Pfeffer also leads the long-term study of Columbia Glacier, on Alaska’s South Central Coast, one the world’s most extensively studied and most rapidly changing glaciers. He has served as an advisor to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), and is a Lead Author for Chapter 13 (Sea Level Change) in the IPCC Fifth Assessment/Working Group I. He also operates WT Pfeffer Geophysical Consultants, LLC, providing consulting modeling, analysis, and assessments on sea level rise and glacier-related hazards. In addition to his scientific work, Pfeffer’s photography has appeared in many publications in the US and Europe. He is the author of The Opening of a New Landscape: Columbia Glacier at Mid-Retreat, published by the American Geophysical Union in 2007. His most recent book is The Hand of the Small Town Builder, published in March 2014,by David R. Godine.