Ilissa Ocko
Although one could see NYC from my childhood street (on a clear day it was the size of a fingernail) I barely ever took advantage of the city growing up, and decided that someday I would want to live on a farm in the countryside. When I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan for college (Go Blue!), and studied Earth System Science and Engineering, I desperately missed the rolling hills of the northeast, and decided definitely no farm someday, but possibly the Arctic. I had traveled to the Arctic (Greenland) during my sophomore year, and fell in love with the breathtaking glaciers. I went straight from undergrad to a Ph.D. program, where I now study pollution transport from the mid-latitudes to the Arctic, and the induced climatic effects. I also returned to the Arctic last summer, traveling to Svalbard (79N!) Outside of my nerdy obsession with climate change, I absolutely love sports, fantasy sports, drawing and musicals.