Navy Space Scientist Heads to UAF

An astro-physicist from the Navy has been named the new head of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. Robert McCoy comes out of a career at the Office of Naval Research and the Naval Research Laboratory. McCoy has worked on a number of space science projects. The university says McCoy will become the fifth scientist to lead the institute since it was established by Congress in 1946 to conduct research on the aurora. It now has more than 300 faculty, staff and students studying a spectrum of geophysical processes.

Its major areas of research include atmospheric sciences; remote sensing; seismology; snow, ice and permafrost; space physics and aeronomy; tectonics and sedimentation; and volcanology.