BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jennifer L. Burnham, Ph.D.

Jen­nifer is a Pro­fes­sor of Geog­ra­phy and Depart­ment Chair at Augus­tana Col­lege in Rock Island, Illi­nois.  She received her M.S. in geog­ra­phy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Cham­paign-Urbana, and her Ph.D. in earth and space sci­ences from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle.  Her dis­ser­ta­tion research focused on the spa­tial dis­tri­b­u­tion of organ­ic car­bon stored in the soils of north­west Green­land.  This research has impor­tant impli­ca­tions for the study of car­bon cycling in the Arc­tic and the role that the release of pre­vi­ous­ly frozen car­bon may have on glob­al cli­mate change. Jen­nifer con­tin­ues to work in the Arc­tic and cur­rent­ly focus­es her research on the High Arc­tic Insti­tute methyl mer­cury and sta­ble iso­tope projects along with bio­geog­ra­phy projects on Atlantic Puffins, Black-legged Kit­ti­wakes, and Pere­grine Fal­cons.  In alter­nat­ing years she brings under­grad­u­ate stu­dents to north­west Green­land to par­tic­i­pate in research projects.

Jack V. Cafferty

Jack was born and raised in Ida­ho, where he has spent a great deal of time enjoy­ing the out­doors since his ear­ly child­hood.  Upon receiv­ing a Bachelor’s degree in Biol­o­gy from the Col­lege of Ida­ho in 1997, he made his first trip to Green­land Work­ing as a field assis­tant.  In ear­ly 2001, Jack began work­ing for The Pere­grine Fund on fundrais­ing, pub­lic rela­tions, and pub­li­ca­tions.  In late 2003, Jack took over the direc­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion pro­gram and the Vel­ma Mor­ri­son Inter­pre­tive Cen­ter at the The Pere­grine Fund’s World Cen­ter for Birds of Prey and over­saw its con­tin­ued growth an expan­sion until sum­mer 2012.  Begin­ning in July 2012 Jack returned to his Alma mater (The Col­lege of Ida­ho) and is cur­rent­ly Vice Pres­i­dent for Col­lege Rela­tions, and looks for­ward to help­ing the small lib­er­al arts col­lege con­tin­ue to grow and expand.  Jack and his wife Ash­ley and sons Jasper and Jett reside in Boise, Ida­ho, and enjoy spend­ing time in the out­doors.  Since that first trip to Green­land, he has returned many times to assist with field work and is a strong advo­cate for the High Arc­tic Institute’s con­tin­ued research in the Arc­tic.  It seems he can just nev­er get enough of that cold arc­tic wind and the slip­ping and slid­ing on the talus slopes!

Jeff A. Johnson, Ph.D.

Jeff is Direc­tor of Research at Wolf Creek Oper­at­ing Foun­da­tion (WCOF), a non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion focused on the con­ser­va­tion of birds of prey and oth­er threat­ed avian species.  His cur­rent efforts are large­ly divid­ed between north­cen­tral Wyoming and the Mayan Forests of Belize were WCOF has been instru­men­tal in the con­ser­va­tion and man­age­ment of the Orange-breast­ed Fal­con, a rare and declin­ing neotrop­i­cal fal­con. Pri­or to WCOF, he was a tenured research fac­ul­ty mem­ber for 13 years in the Depart­ment of Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences and the Insti­tute of Applied Sci­ences at Uni­ver­si­ty of North Texas and an Assis­tant Research Sci­en­tist for five years with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Muse­um of Zool­o­gy-Bird Divi­sion and the Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy and Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­o­gy. His pri­ma­ry research has focused on evo­lu­tion­ary and con­ser­va­tion biol­o­gy of birds of prey and grouse, but he has expe­ri­ence work­ing with addi­tion­al avian species of con­ser­va­tion con­cern with broad exper­tise in both the field and lab­o­ra­to­ry.  When­ev­er pos­si­ble, Jeff has also helped the High Arc­tic Insti­tute since its incep­tion with research efforts to pro­tect and learn more about the Arc­tic and its unique inhab­i­tants.

Calen Offield

Calen was born in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia and raised on San­ta Catali­na Island for the first eight years of his life before mov­ing to Lagu­na Beach.  At a young age, he was intro­duced to the impor­tance of con­ser­va­tion through his involve­ment with the Catali­na Island Con­ser­van­cy and expe­ri­ences with the Bill­fish Foun­da­tion.  Calen stud­ied a year of wildlife biol­o­gy at Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty, before trans­fer­ring to Brooks Insti­tute of Pho­tog­ra­phy, where he grad­u­at­ed with a degree in Pho­tog­ra­phy.  He cur­rent­ly works as a doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er, trav­el­ing the world for var­i­ous assign­ments.  Calen first trav­eled to Green­land in 2002 with The Pere­grine Fund, and his love of Green­land has con­tin­ued to grow as he works each year with the High Arc­tic Insti­tute on their ongo­ing research projects.