Meet Dr. Colleen Iversen, a Distinguished Staff Scientist and Group Leader at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the director of the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE) Arctic project.
April 25, 2024
minute read time
The Arctic Energy Office is hosting a series of interviews to highlight the lives and achievements of some of DOE’s outstanding employees with Arctic and Alaska connections. Today, meet Dr. Colleen Iversen, a Distinguished Staff Scientist and Group Leader at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the director of the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE) Arctic project. NGEE Arctic is a large, multi-phase project that has been ongoing since 2012, asking a variety of scientific questions on Alaska’s North Slope and on the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The project’s goal is to improve the representation of tundra processes in Earth system models that represent the real world in virtual space using mathematical algorithms, and that can help predict our climate future. Find out more about NGEE Arctic here!
If you're a Department of Energy employee and have Arctic connections or know someone at DOE who does, please connect at [email protected] so we can feature you in future editions.
Tell us about your experiences in the Arctic. What were some of your favorite memories from that time?
My very first trip to Alaska was to Barrow, Alaska (the community has since changed their name to Utqiaġvik, Alaska). It reminded me of a very cold seashore – there are no trees, and polygons formed by underground ice wedges dominate the landscape. The short-statured plants that do live on the tundra hug the ground to avoid the harsh conditions. I thought it was so fascinating and beautiful. I’ve since been to other parts of Alaska, but none have been as meaningful to me as that first step onto the frozen polygonal tundra. I do embroidery as a hobby, and I’ve been inspired to capture the plants, animals, and soils of the arctic tundra in many of my pieces (Editor’s note: See more of Colleen’s embroidery work here!)
Where are your favorite places in Alaska?
I have not had the opportunity to travel extensively within Alaska or across the Arctic outside of my working trips, but I can confidently say my favorite place in the world is Utqiaġvik. I love the small-town feel – where everyone knows everyone – and each person you meet is so gracious; it makes me grateful to be a guest in their community. The local Alaskan Native Corporation, the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC), runs the UIC Science Corporation, and they have been facilitating science on the nearby Barrow Environmental Observatory for over 50 years. Utqiaġvik is essentially a science city – and they always welcome scientists to learn more about the lands where they have lived since time immemorial.
When did you start working at DOE?
I grew up in small-town Michigan but ended up moving south to Tennessee in 2003 to pursue my PhD, where I discovered nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) through a collaboration with a staff scientist there. After a PhD and post-doc that emphasized big science and improved understanding of climate impacts that are the hallmark of national laboratory science, I was hired as a scientist at ORNL in 2010. I’ve been a part of the NGEE Arctic project team since its inception in 2012, serving as both task lead and Deputy Director over time; I have been serving as the Director of the project since 2023. Before I started as the Director, I was splitting my time working with the Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) project where we’re observing the climate impacts of a warmer future in a peat bog at the Marcell Experimental Forest in Northern Minnesota. (Editor’s note: you can read more about both of these projects in this Office of Science blog).
Why did you want to work at DOE?
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science is driven by a mission to transform our understanding of the natural world. The rapidly changing Arctic has consequences for our global climate, and for society’s future – because what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. I love working at one of the DOE’s national labs, where teams of scientists from across many disciplines work together to solve big problems. And I love that the NGEE Arctic project spans multiple national labs (including ORNL, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs) and also partners with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
How did your time in the Arctic shape who you are today?
Sooooo many ways. It’s trite to say that the Arctic is vast…but it is. Wrapping your arms around what’s going to happen in such a vast, rapidly changing part of the world, and asking big science questions – like what does the future hold for the arctic tundra and for the rest of the world – is worthy of national laboratory teams that span institutions and disciplines. We also continue to learn from the Native communities who have lived on these lands since time immemorial, and we are moving closer to a future where Traditional Knowledge plays an important role as a foundation for our understanding of the natural world.
What do you love about your job?
I love everything about my job – it’s focused at the sweet spot where science, people, and societally important questions meet. As I transitioned from Deputy Director to Director of the NGEE Arctic project over the last year – taking over a big project of more than 100 folks – there has been a steep learning curve and a lot of extra work, but it's important to me to make sure I get it right. The NGEE Arctic project has the opportunity to really make a difference – not only in helping predict the role of the changing Arctic in what the future might hold for society, but also in establishing a culture of trust and inclusion in a large, cross-disciplinary project. I often see folks wearing NASA tee-shirts, but the Department of Energy’s Office of Science is one of the biggest funders of basic research in the country. I’d like to see people proudly wearing DOE tee-shirts too, and celebrating the work we are doing to help better understand the world around us.