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| 2001 Team |
Susan Kaspari
Field Assistant
University of Maine
Orono, Maine
This will be my second season on the ITASE traverse, and my fifth season in Antarctica. I am a graduate student at the University of Maine studying climate variability in Antarctica by looking at the glaciochemistry of ice cores. As a field assistant on the traverse I assist in the drilling of ice cores, make preliminary measurements on the ice cores, and pack the cores for their long trip back to the states. My graduate thesis work will focus on the six ice cores collected during the 2001-2002 ITASE traverse.
I was born and raised in Colorado, and did my undergraduate work in Environmental Studies with a hydrology focus at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After college I lived in Aspen and worked on the field staff of the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association and as a Wilderness Ranger for the Forest Service.
My love for the cold and snow eventually had me looking beyond Colorado and I began working in Antarctica as a support worker fueling airplanes and helicopters at McMurdo and South Pole stations. I spent my third season in Antarctica as a field assistant on the Long Term Ecological Research project in the Dry Valleys. Other research experience includes a hydrology study of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, a study of heavy metal transport through snowpacks in Colorado, and a study of supraglacial hydrology on the Juneau Icefield in Alaska.
When I'm not on the ice I'm never far from Forest, my husky-shepherd. I enjoy telemark skiing, backpacking, swimming, trail running, canoing and putzing around my kitchen. I've traveled in Europe, Africa, Central and South America, New Zealand, Alaska, and Antarctica. I'm looking forward to another excellent season on the ITASE traverse.
