• Ph.D. Earth Science, University of California Santa Cruz
• M.S. Botany, University of Vermont
• B.A. Environmental Studies, University of California Santa Barbara

“Ability to play the banjo soon places one in a position to pick and choose among scores of social invitations. Everywhere, the banjoist is assured of a hearty welcome.”  -1927 Gibson catalog

In the flatlands of Nebraska, I spent my tender years spilling cornflakes on laminated souvenir placemats with fancy pictures of the Rocky Mountains. The images became dreams, and I now love Alaska for the same reason I love the earth sciences. I have a passion for mountain landscapes, and I aspire in my teaching to convey that passion to my students. In my earliest teaching experiences, as a climbing guide and outdoor leader, that was easy. The challenge I’ve embraced at APU is to build that same passion into my work as a scientist.

My educational philosophy is rooted in my own educational experience, which has been broadly interdisciplinary and field-based. As an undergraduate in environmental studies, I learned the social and ecological context that motivates my work as a scientist. I followed that with the intensive, field-oriented training of an M.S. in botany with the University of Vermont’s Field Naturalist Program. There, I learned first-hand the power of combining rigorous classroom lectures with focused field exercises. I learned also to let the landscape, rather than a disciplinary boundary, dictate my questions. In that vein, I next pursued a Ph.D. in geomorphology, encouraged by two co-advisors at UC Santa Cruz who share my passion for Alaskan landscapes, and taught me that even the most unfamiliar tools of science can be easily mastered if you start with an interesting question.

Along the way, my research has been unified by an interest in the response of glaciated landscapes to late Holocene climate changes. In the mountains of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, where much of my work is focused, I’ve found evidence of the Little Ice Age in varved lake sediments, insect epidemics, abandoned deltas, lichen demography, abandoned copper mines, terminal moraines, white spruce-alder interactions, and glacier outburst floods. The more I learn, the more connected everything seems, and I feel lucky to live and work in a place where so many of the connections still aren’t broken.

Michael Loso's Website