Amanda Lynch & Charles Norchi

As esteemed experts in their respective fields of Arctic study, Amanda H. Lynch and Charles H. Norchi present unique and comprehensive insights on the region—from polar climate systems to geopolitics and international Arctic law.  

Amanda H. Lynch is an Arctic atmospheric scientist and a distinguished authority on polar climate systems, Indigenous environmental knowledge, and climate policy analysis. She serves as the Lindemann Distinguished Professor at the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences of Brown University. As the founding Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, she has been instrumental in shaping interdisciplinary research on environmental challenges and their societal impacts. Lynch chairs the Research Board of the World Meteorological Organization. She has advised the World Bank, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Chief Scientist of Australia, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, among others. She is a Fellow of The Explorers Club, The World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and several national scientific academies, and she won the Priestley Medal in 2008 for her contributions to Arctic system science. Lynch has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers on sea-ice dynamics, climate modeling and Indigenous climate resilience, and her recent book Urgency in the Anthropocene (MIT Press) explores how societies navigate accelerating change. She first led field work in the Arctic in the 1990s and has returned many times to collaborate with Indigenous colleagues of the high north. Her blend of scientific rigor and on-the-ground experience makes her an engaging guide to the ice, weather, and cultures that define Greenland in spring. 

Charles H. Norchi is the Benjamin Thompson Professor of Law in the University of Maine School of Law where he is Director of the Center for Oceans Law and Founder/Director of the sole Arctic Law Program in the United States. He is an expert in International Law, International Security, Maritime Law, Expedition Law, Geopolitics, and the Arctic, subjects on which he has published widely and lectured in 44 countries. Dr. Norchi is also Visiting Professor in the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine and the Institute for the Environment at Brown University, Co-Chair of the International Institute for Law, Science, and Policy (Geneva, Switzerland), and a Fellow of The Explorers Club, The World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (RAS), for which he is the namesake of the RAS Afghanistan prize. He has worked as a journalist in Afghanistan, legal counsel to United Nations organizations and international companies, has studied in France and Switzerland, and holds degrees from Harvard University, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and Yale Law School.

Languages spoken: English (Amanda Lynch); English and French (Charles Norchi)

Photo courtesy of Amanda Lynch & Charles Norchi