Michalea King is a Post Doctoral Scholar working with Ian Joughin at the Polar Science Center. She is combining a variety of remotely sensed data products to understand large-scale changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet over a range of temporal scales. She is currently interested in constraining how variability in summertime surface melt, which can drain beneath large outlet glaciers, impacts ice flow and dynamic ice losses from the ice sheet.
Prior to joining PSC, Michalea earned her PhD in Earth Sciences under the supervision of Dr. Ian Howat at the Ohio State University and Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. Her dissertation work focused on resolving multidecadal records of change at large Greenland outlet glaciers. Specifically, she showed how the volume of ice drained by these glaciers related to retreat, and how these trends impacted the total mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Michalea also has interests in sea ice and completed her M.S. with Dr. Dana Veron at the University of Delaware, with a thesis focused on understanding the role of surface radiative fluxes on seasonal changes in Arctic sea ice. She has participated in multiple fieldwork campaigns, including two campaigns in Greenland, one at South Pole Station, Antarctica, and served as a teaching faculty member for the Juneau Ice Research Program, Alaska.