McNutt to run US Geological Survey

The White House has announced that Marcia K. McNutt has been nominated as the next director of the US Geological Survey and science advisor to the Secretary of the Interior. Currently she is the president and chief executive officer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute .

McNutt studied geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla , California and earned her PhD there in Earth Sciences in 1978.

She spent 3 years with the USGS in California working on earthquake prediction before moving to MIT in 1982 as director of the Joint Program in Oceanography & Applied Ocean Science & Engineering , a program offered by both MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanography Institution.

McNutt has participated in 15 major oceanographic expeditions and served as chief scientist on more than half of those voyages. She has published 90 peer-reviewed scientific articles and also chaired the President’s Panel on Ocean Exploration convened by President Clinton to examine the possibility of initiating a major US program in exploring the oceans.

She is a fellow for 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 a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Paul Guinnessy