LECTURES & IDEAS

Voyager Lecture Series

The Hidden World Beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Presentation by John Priscu

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 // 7:30pm

Optional Social Hour With Like-Minded Friends, Light Snacks And Beverages @ 6:30pm

The Lorraine Boccardo Theater

Discover the secrets that lie beneath the largest block of ice on Earth that covers more than 5.4
million square miles and contains over 68% of all the freshwater on our planet.

John Priscu is a Regents Professor Emeritus of Ecology and senior scientist with Polar Oceans
Research Group. He has spent 40 field seasons in Antarctica conducting research on life under
ice-shelves, the Southern Ocean, sea ice, permanently ice-covered lakes, life beneath the two-
mile-thick Antarctic ice sheet, and climate change. His work also focuses on Himalayan glaciers
and the study of life on icy worlds beyond Earth putting him in Tibet, Alaska, and Greenland as
an investigator on various Chinese and NASA projects. He chaired the Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research international subglacial group of experts and led the first winter expeditions
to study ecosystems in the Transantarctic Mountains during the polar night.

Professor Priscu is a Fellow of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union, is
a German Humboldt Scholar, and has received numerous awards for his research, including the
Goldwaithe Medal in Glaciology for his work on polar ice sheets, the International Medal for
Scientific Excellence from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, and the E.O. Wilson
Biodiversity Award for his work on polar microbial diversity. An Antarctic stream and valley, and
two cold-loving microorganisms have been named after him. Priscu has published more than
300 scholarly articles on his research, edited four books, and is the featured scientist on the
recent award-winning documentary “The Lake at the Bottom of the World” available on Prime,
AppleTV and other media outlets.