About the Polar Science Center

The Polar Science Center conducts basic and applied research on the oceanography, climatology, meteorology, biology and ecology of earth's ice-covered regions. The scope of PSC fieldwork and research includes the Arctic and the Antarctic, as well as sea-ice, glaciers and continental ice sheets. The PSC staff comprises 20 Principal Investigators, 7 support staff and a varying number of graduate students and post-doctoral research associates.

Most of the funding for PSC's research comes from grants and contracts with U.S. Federal agencies such as NSF, NASA, NOAA and ONR. A large fraction of PSC research addresses the relationships between the polar regions and the global climate system. Our research includes observing and modeling the physical processes that control the nature and distribution of sea-ice, the structure and circulation of high latitude oceans and atmosphere, and the interactions among air, ocean, ice and biota. Current PSC research projects are described on the Projects page.

Graduate Education Involvement

Graduate student research is a vital part of the Polar Science Center and the Applied Physics Laboratory. Several PSC scientists hold faculty appointments in UW academic departments and teach and supervise graduate students. However, the Applied Physics Laboratory is a research unit and does not admit students or grant degrees. If you are interested in working under the supervision of a PSC staff member, you must first apply for admission to the appropriate academic department, for example, Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography, Earth and Space Sciences, and Electrical Engineering. Once admitted as a graduate student, you can then explore opportunities for research at PSC. If you wish to pursue graduate study and research with a specific PSC scientist, you should contact that person directly during the early part of the admissions process, to determine whether opportunities are available. For additional information please visit the Applied Physics Laboratory's Education and Outreach page.

Polar Science Center History

PSC was established in 1978 at the end of the multiyear Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX), a major NSF/ONR/Canada program. In 1982 PSC was incorporated into the Applied Physics Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research facility. PSC provides comprehensive logistics and support for numerous polar field experiments.