Marcia McNutt, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine, Ocean Exploration 2020 Executive Chair
Dr. Marcia Kemper McNutt is a distinguished geophysicist and explorer who is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine. She is also the Ocean Exploration 2020 Executive Chair.
In February 2013, Dr. McNutt stepped down as the director of the U.S. Geological Survey (UGSG) and science advisor to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. She was the first woman director of the USGS in its more than 100-year history. Prior to working at the USGS, Dr. McNutt was president and chief executive officer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
As a scientist, Dr. McNutt has participated in 15 major oceanographic expeditions and served as chief scientist on more than half of those voyages. She has published nearly 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Her research has ranged from studies of ocean island volcanism in French Polynesia to continental break-up in the Western United States to uplift of the Tibet Plateau.
Dr. McNutt received a B.A. degree in Physics from Colorado College in Colorado Springs. As a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, she studied geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, where she earned a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences. She then spent three years with the USGS in Menlo Park, California, working on earthquake prediction.
She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Association of Geodesy. She is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and helped to bring about the merger of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions with the Consortium for Ocean Research and Education to become the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, for which she served as Trustee.
