Marcia Kemper McNutt (born February 19, 1952) is an American

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

and the 22nd president of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...

(NAS) of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. Previously, she served as

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the peer-reviewed journal ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'' from 2013 to 2016. McNutt holds a visiting appointment at the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public serv ...

. She is a member of the

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...

advisory committee for the Division on Earth and Life Studies and the Forum on Open Science. McNutt chaired the NASEM climate intervention committee who delivered two reports in 2015. McNutt was the 15th director of the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States government. The scientists of the USGS study th ...

(USGS) (the first woman to hold the post) as well as science adviser to the

United States Secretary of the Interior The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natura ...

from 2010 to 2013. Before working for USGS, McNutt was president and chief executive officer of the

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is a private, non-profit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California. MBARI was founded in 1987 by David Packard, and is primarily funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation ...

(MBARI), an

oceanographic Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

research center in the United States, professor of marine geophysics at the

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

School of Earth Sciences and professor of marine geophysics at

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

Family and education

McNutt's father was a small business owner and her mother was a college-educated homemaker. In an interview with the

, McNutt said that in their household, women's education was a tradition and a norm, and that her parents encouraged McNutt and her sisters academically. She was

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA) ...

of her class at the Northrop Collegiate School (now The Blake School) in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...

, graduating in 1970. She received a bachelor's degree in physics ''summa cum laude'',

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ar ...

, from

Colorado College Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduates at its campus. The college offer ...

in 1973. As a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, she then studied geophysics at the

where she earned a PhD in earth sciences in 1978. Her dissertation was titled ''Continental and Oceanic Isostasy''. McNutt is a

National Association of Underwater Instructors The National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI Worldwide) is a non-profit association of scuba instructors. It primarily serves as a recreational dive certification and membership organization established to provide international di ...

(NAUI)-certified

scuba diver Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chris ...

and she trained in underwater demolition and explosives handling with the

Underwater Demolition Team Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized non-tactical missions. They were predecessors of the navy's current SEAL teams. Their primary WWII func ...

(UDT) of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

and the

United States Navy SEALs The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting s ...

. Marcia Kemper McNutt was married first to Marcel Hoffmann, who died in 1988. They had three daughters: Meredith McNutt Hoffmann and identical twins Dana and Ashley Hoffmann. Ashley Hoffmann was " Miss Rodeo California" in 2009. Marcia McNutt is also a horse enthusiast and enjoys

barrel racing Barrel racing is a rodeo event in which a horse and rider attempt to run a cloverleaf pattern around preset barrels in the fastest time. In collegiate and professional ranks, it is usually a women's event, though both sexes compete at amateur and ...

on her mare Lulu. McNutt is one of six women scientists featured in the 1995

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

(

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's se ...

) series, "Discovering Women." How she excelled in science with a household of young daughters and the help of housekeeper Ann and her daughter is described by Jocelyn Steinke in "A portrait of a woman as a scientist: breaking down barriers created by gender-role stereotypes". McNutt and Ian Young, an

MBARI The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is a private, non-profit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California. MBARI was founded in 1987 by David Packard, and is primarily funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation ...

ship's captain, were married in 1996.

Early years

After a brief appointment at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. T ...

, McNutt worked for three years on earthquake prediction at the US Geological Survey in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; ...

. In 1982, she became assistant professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

(MIT) and in 1988 was appointed Griswold Professor of Geophysics. She previously served as director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, a cooperative effort of MIT and the

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...

Research

She participated in 15 major oceanographic expeditions and served as chief scientist on more than half of them. She published about 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Her research has included studies of ocean island volcanism in

French Polynesia )Territorial motto: ( en, "Great Tahiti of the Golden Haze") , anthem = , song_type = Regional anthem , song = " Ia Ora 'O Tahiti Nui" , image_map = French Polynesia on the globe (French Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of Frenc ...

, continental break-up in the Western United States, and uplift of the

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

plateau. McNutt has made notable contributions to the understanding of the

rheology Rheology (; ) is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid (liquid or gas) state, but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an appli ...

and strength of the

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years o ...

. She showed that young volcanoes could flex the lithosphere, influencing the elevation of nearby volcanoes, and used a 3-D analysis of topography and gravity data to show that the Australian plate could be strong on short time scales and weak on long scales. She also showed how subducting ocean plates could weaken and identified a large topographic feature called the ''South Pacific superswell''.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Monterey Bay Research Institute 2012-10-13 P1030632

McNutt was president and CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) from 1997 to 2009. During that time the RV ''Western Flyer'', MBARI's research vessel, made expeditions from Canada to Baja California and the Hawaiian Islands. MBARI built the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS), the first deep-sea cabled observatory in the continental United States.

U.S. Geological Survey

Appointment

In July 2009, McNutt was announced as President Obama's nominee to be the next director of the

and science adviser to the

. The

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the ...

unanimously approved her nomination on October 21. She was the first woman to lead the USGS since its establishment in 1879.

Secretary A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a w ...

Ken Salazar Kenneth Lee Salazar (born March 2, 1955) is an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Mexico. He previously served as the 50th United States Secretary of the Interior in the administration of President Ba ...

endorsed McNutt for the position. In a television interview following Obama's announcement, McNutt said:

BP oil spill

Deepwater Horizon oil spill - May 24, 2010 - with locator

During her first year, four major events impacted USGS in quick succession: a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, an 8.0 earthquake in Chile, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and the

BP oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considere ...

. In May 2010, McNutt headed the

Flow Rate Technical Group The Flow Rate Technical Group is a group of scientists and engineers from the United States federal government, universities, and research institutions created May 19, 2010, for an official scientific-based estimate of the flow of oil in the Deepw ...

which attempted to measure the

Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considere ...

in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United St ...

. Preliminary reports from the group said that the rate of the oil spill was at least twice and possibly up to five times as much as previously acknowledged. Subsequent estimates, based on six independent methodologies, were four times the 1989

Exxon Valdez oil spill The ''Exxon Valdez'' oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. ''Exxon Valdez'', an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company bound for Long Beach, California struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, west ...

. A refined estimate based on new pressure readings, data, and analysis, released by the

United States Secretary of Energy The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...

Steven Chu Steven ChuBP, for the Justice Department, for plaintiffs, and for the Gulf states. Subject to approval by U.S. federal courts, BP agreed to a settlement in November 2012 in which the company pleaded guilty to felony charges of misconduct or neglect concerning eleven deaths at the explosion site. The company agreed to pay

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

4.5 billion including US$1.256 billion in criminal fines. As of 2012, BP may still be liable for US$5.4 to US$31 billion in civil fines under the

Clean Water Act The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the responsibiliti ...

and Oil Pollution Act.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, environmental protection organization of local, state, and national government natural resource and environmental professionals. PEER serves as a resource to potent ...

(PEER) filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and a complaint about a

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

scientist in the Flow Rate Technical Group which McNutt led. The group felt that government scientists understated the flow rate of the

USGS peer review process

McNutt participated in the reversal of a 2006 USGS policy that required agency scientists to submit their work to two internal reviewers and obtain a sign-off from a higher level official before submitting their work to external journals who then applied their own peer-review process. Scientists can now have both internal and external reviews simultaneously and the internal process is reduced to one internal review plus sign-off by the USGS Office of Science Quality and Integrity.

Afghan mineral wealth

In September 2011, a USGS team including Jack H. Medlin, Said Mirzad, Stephen G. Peters and Robert D. Tucker published a report which they presented at the Afghan embassy in Washington, DC, detailing 57 information packages about Areas of Interest (AOIs) that total at least 1,000,000 metric tons of untapped mineral deposits they have found in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'' speculated that replacing "opium and Taliban strongholds with a mining bonanza" could "change U.S. foreign policy and world stability". This report, which points to resources that ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said in 2010 were worth 1 trillion, was put into the public domain. McNutt said at the time:The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, USGS, Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines and Afghanistan's Geological Survey.

Map of Jupiter's moon Io

In 2011 and online in 2012, USGS released a geologic surface map of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth th ...

's moon Io, which is the most volcanically active body in our solar system, about twenty-five times more active than earth. David Williams of

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the U ...

was the project lead. The maps are made of the best images from NASA's

Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...

and 2 missions (acquired in 1979) as well as the spacecraft

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

(1995–2003) named for

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

who discovered Jupiter's

moons A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are often colloquially referred to as ''moons'' ...

in 1610. McNutt said:

Animal extinction and disease

In 2012, USGS declared the blue-tailed

skink Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. Ski ...

named ''

Emoia ''Emoia'' is a genus of skinks, lizards in the subfamily Eugongylinae. The genus ''Emoia'' belongs to a group of genera mainly from the southwestern Pacific-Australian region. These small skinks are commonly known as emoias or skinks. Species ...

impar'' extinct because none have been observed in their home the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Ku ...

since the 1960s. McNutt, quoted by John Platt for ''

'', said: In a press release, McNutt introduced a lecture by David Blehert, a USGS research scientist, speaking on

white nose syndrome White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease in North American bats which has resulted in the dramatic decrease of the bat population in the United States and Canada, reportedly killing millions as of 2018. The condition is named for a distinct ...

which may afflict six species of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

s and may have "far-reaching ecological consequences": McNutt commented on work by lead researcher Carol Meteyer and others from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center and the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1 ...

in November 2012:

Federal "Big Data" initiative

McNutt spoke on a panel of leaders of US agencies (OSTP, NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, DARPA and USGS) who rolled out the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 44th president of the United States began with First inauguration of Barack Obama, his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democratic Pa ...

's "Big Data Research and Development Initiative." Tom Kalil of the

Office of Science and Technology Policy An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...

said, "By improving our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data, the initiative promises to help accelerate the pace of discovery in science and engineering, strengthen our national security, and transform teaching and learning." USGS announced the latest awardees for grants it issues through its John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis.

Energy: fossil fuels, fracking and biofuel

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was establ ...

reported that USGS released into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

a new estimate of the world's oil and gas resources, the first such report since 2000. Excluding the U.S. the USGS found: "565 billion barrels of conventional oil and 5,606 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered conventional natural gas in 171 priority geologic provinces of the world". The report said about 75% of the resources are in four places: South America and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean S ...

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African c ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europea ...

and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, and the North American Arctic. "In particular, this assessment underscores the importance of continuing to strengthen our energy partnerships in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term W ...

with nations like Brazil..." said secretary Salazar. Bloomberg News reported that during her testimony in March 2012, McNutt told the

United States House Committee on Natural Resources The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources or Natural Resources Committee (often referred to as simply Resources) is a Congressional committee of the United States House of Representatives. Originally called the Committee on Interior and Ins ...

that "less than 1 percent of wells drilled to dispose of the water after

fracking Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

causes 'induced seismicity'. McNutt said more information would reduce the risk of induced earthquakes in a year or two. She said:

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...

reported in March 2012 that USGS has developed a tool that can map grasslands using remote sensing data from satellites. The technique will help if and when global demand for

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA ...

products increases as an alternative to

fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...

s. McNutt said in a statement that the study:

Earthquakes: hazard reduction, drill, research

In cooperation with the

Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...

, USGS continued to monitor and record in detail the performance of

veterans hospital Veterans' health care in the United States is separated geographically into 19 regions (numbered 1, 2, 4-10, 12 and 15–23) In January 2002, the Veterans Health Administration announced the merger of VISNs 13 and 14 to create a new, combined netw ...

buildings during

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

s. Recently, two buildings were fitted with sensors at the Memphis VA Medical Center which is within the range of the

New Madrid Seismic Zone The New Madrid Seismic Zone (), sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes (earthquakes within a tectonic plate) in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to ...

, the most active earthquake zone in the

Eastern United States The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...

. USGS works with the

National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

(NEHRP) led by the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

(NIST) both to monitor buildings during earthquake events and to help design safer hospitals in the future. Landsat 8 launch

On October 18, 2012, McNutt, Bill Leith of USGS and Michael Mahoney of the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

(FEMA) continued earthquake practice at the

ShakeOut Shakeout is a term used in business and economics to describe the consolidation of an industry or sector, in which businesses are eliminated or acquired through competition. It may also refer to a situation in which many investors exit their po ...

at the Langston Hughes Middle School in

Reston, Virginia Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226. Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City moveme ...

. Participants learn to "drop, cover, and hold on" to protect themselves during an earthquake. Millions of people have participated since the event started in 2008. "Going through drills makes it second nature for the students in the event of an actual emergency," McNutt said of The Great American Shake-Out event held in February 2013 in eight US states that border on the

. USGS promised up to US$7 million in grants for earthquake research in 2013. The agency has funded about 90 such grants which, for example, cataloged southern California

earthquakes An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

to better prepare

emergency responder A certified first responder is a person who has completed a course and received certification in providing pre-hospital care for medical emergencies. Certified individuals should have received much more instruction than someone who is trained ...

s, the public and the

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass ...

. Projects also provided

seismic hazard A seismic hazard is the probability that an earthquake will occur in a given geographic area, within a given window of time, and with ground motion intensity exceeding a given threshold. With a hazard thus estimated, risk can be assessed and inclu ...

estimates for safer buildings and roads, and provided data on ground shaking to help minimize damage.

Landsat

NASA and USGS launched

Landsat 8 Landsat 8 is an American Earth observation satellite launched on 11 February 2013. It is the eighth satellite in the Landsat program; the seventh to reach orbit successfully. Originally called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), it is a ...

on February 11, 2013, to continue their 40-year record of providing images for land use and climate change (about 9 million images as of 2013). McNutt wrote that Landsat 8 enhances USGS's position as land steward for the United States.

Departure

McNutt directed USGS from 2009 until 2013, when she announced her departure to USGS staff members. She said at the time that she would leave after the launch of

and that

Suzette Kimball Suzette M. Kimball is an American geologist and environmental scientist who served as the 16th Director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. Education Kimball earned her B.A. ...

would serve as the acting director.

Exit summary

McNutt's announcement included a 21-point summary of her tenure which she prepared for Secretary Salazar. Among achievements listed were realignment of USGS management, eight "DOI Climate Science Centers", the "first national water census on water use and availability", a California prototype of Earthquake Early Warning, publication of the "first two of the biological carbon sequestration reports", and various means of "advancing US energy independence".

''Science'' tenure

Open access: ''Science Advances''

As editor in chief, McNutt led the editorial team at ''

'' in their decision to enter the world of

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

publishing. Beginning in 2015, they expect to publish several thousand articles per year in the online only, open access journal ''

Science Advances ''Science Advances'' is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal established in early 2015 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The journal's scope includes all areas of science, includ ...

'' (compared to ''Science'' which can publish less than one thousand per year, accepting less than 6% of submissions). McNutt told ''

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practi ...

'' that they were searching for a solution to licensing, perhaps one license acceptable to all authors or perhaps offering a menu of licenses so each community can choose.

Keystone XL

McNutt initially sided with environmentalists who opposed approval of the

Keystone Pipeline The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC Energy and as of 31 March 2020 the Government of Alberta. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Albe ...

. In an interview for NPR's ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 A ...

'' in 2014, she explained why she changed her mind and published an editorial in favor. First, the oil is already being transported for example by truck and train, using more fossil fuels than the pipeline would use. Second, she thinks concessions can be made in exchange for approving the pipeline, for example requiring a limit on carbon emissions when converting the tar sands to liquid for transport in the pipeline, and demanding that the pipeline be the safest ever built. Finally, because the pipeline is the very least expensive mode of transport, she found a potential revenue stream in the money saved by the pipeline which she thinks should be used to fund renewable energy in the U.S.

Climate engineering

Several U.S. agencies including the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

requested that the U.S. government study

climate engineering Climate engineering (also called geoengineering) is a term used for both carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), also called solar geoengineering, when applied at a planetary scale.IPCC (2022Chapter 1: Introduction and ...

and so the committee that McNutt chairs was born of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ken Caldeira Kenneth Caldeira (born 1960) is an American atmospheric scientist. His areas of research include ocean acidification, climate effects of trees, intentional climate modification, interactions in the global carbon cycle/climate system, and sustai ...

, who also sits on the committee, and David Keith are eager to try out ideas, in part spurred by the

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories, managed by the United States Department of Energy, Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. The main campus of the labor ...

funded by

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

who is an enthusiast of climate engineering research. McNutt cautioned that government-sponsored field tests "may not happen".

Whether we wind up using these technologies, or someone else does and we suddenly find ourselves in a geo-engineered world, we have to better understand the impacts and the consequences."

Meeting with Li Keqiang in China

Premier of the People's Republic of China,

Li Keqiang Li Keqiang (born 1 July 1955) is a Chinese politician who is the outgoing premier of China. An economist by profession, Li is head of China's executive branch as well as one of the leading figures behind China's Financial and Economic Affai ...

requested a meeting with McNutt, as editor in chief of ''Science'', to discuss science as part of her trip to China in January 2014. The meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes and the rules specified no US reporters present and the topics of "science and the economy, not politics". They talked on 13 January at Ziguangge,

Zhongnanhai Zhongnanhai () is a former imperial garden in the Imperial City, Beijing, adjacent to the Forbidden City; it serves as the central headquarters for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the State Council (central government) of China. Zhon ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 2 ...

. Li answered questions from McNutt about space exploration, China's scientific cooperation with other developing countries, climate change, education, and environmental protection. ''Science'' published a transcript of the 70 minute meeting.

Statistical review

With a goal to improve the reproducibility of its published research, McNutt announced in 2014 that ''Science'' had added statistical checks to its peer-review process. Based on collaboration with the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

, the journal appointed seven experts to a Statistics Board of Reviewing who are responsible for securing outside statisticians to review potential ''Science'' articles.

Cover photo and controversies

The cover of the 11 July 2014 issue depicted three transgender sex workers from Indonesia with their heads cropped out. Citing "she tricked me" and the "trans panic defense" sometimes used by perpetrators, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nat ...

'' noted that transgender people are 30 percent more likely than others to be the victims of violence. Numerous people objected in their blogs. Congresswoman

Jackie Speier Karen Lorraine Jacqueline Speier ( ; born May 14, 1950) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for , serving in Congress since 2008. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 12th Dis ...

objected in a letter to the publisher. ''Science'' CEO and publisher Alan Leshner apologized to Speier and termed the cover "regrettable." McNutt apologized on Twitter and in ''Science'' for "any discomfort that this cover may have caused anyone" and gave her:

omise that we will strive to do much better in the future to be sensitive to all groups and not assume that context and intent will speak for themselves.

The cover (and unfortunate response from the former editor of ''ScienceCareers'') and two other columns provoked Aradhna Tripati, Jennifer Glass, Lenny Teytelman, and 600 other scientists to send a letter in 2015 to ''Science'' accusing the journal of perpetuating sexist stereotypes. In one column, Alice S. Huang, the former president of ''Sciences publisher, the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...

, advised a female postdoctoral fellow not to complain about her supervisor, whose habit was trying to look down the woman's shirt, as long as the supervisor didn't develop other advances. In another, the chief biochemist at Toronto's

University Health Network University Health Network (UHN) is a public research and teaching hospital network in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest health research organization in Canada and ranks first in Canada for total research funding. It was named Canada's t ...

said he was promoted because his wife had given up her career and PhD to support him. McNutt published a formal apology in July 2015, and said that she thought ''Science'' should start an advisory board made up of young scientists who might be in tune with the issues.

Support for science

In June 2014, the US

(NIH) together with

Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...

and ''Science'' held a workshop on the reproducibility and rigor of research findings. More than 30 participants, who all publish preclinical biological research, codified a set of principles that will advance and support research that is reproducible, robust, and transparent. The principles are endorsed by 78 associations, journals and societies who all agreed to them. In January 2015, the

Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the wo ...

published a poll representing the public and a sample of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The public and scientists disagreed quite dramatically on 12 out of 13 issues covered in the survey. On the occasion of Pew's publication, writer

Joel Achenbach Joel LeRoy Achenbach (; born December 31, 1960) is an American staff writer for ''The Washington Post'' and the author of seven books, including '' A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea'', ''The Grand Idea'', ''Captured by Aliens'', ''It Looks Like a Pr ...

asked McNutt for her input on a ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

'' feature article, "Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?". McNutt neatly gave this definition:

Science is not a body of facts. Science is a method for deciding whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not.

Retraction

In May 2015, McNutt and ''Science'' retracted a December 2014 study, " When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality."

Donald Green Donald Philip Green (born June 23, 1961) is a political scientist and quantitative methodologist at Columbia University. Green's primary research interests lie in the development of statistical methods for field experiments and their application ...

requested the retraction after asking for and not receiving the study data from his coauthor Michael LaCour.

Family of journals expands

In 2015, ''Science'' announced the expansion of its family of journals to include '' Science Robotics'' and '' Science Immunology''. Both were expected to begin publication in mid-2016. The first issue of ''Science Immunology'' was published in July 2016, while the first issue of ''Science Robotics'' was published in December 2016.

National Academy of Sciences

In July 2015, McNutt was nominated to stand for election as president of the

. She was elected to a six-year term beginning July 1, 2016 and ending June 30, 2022.

Climate intervention

McNutt chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts, whose sixteen scientists published their findings on climate geoengineering in February 2015. The committee decided to issue two complementary reports, one on mitigating carbon dioxide emissions, and one on albedo modification. They agreed to call the process "intervention", which implies an action intended to improve, rather than "management" or "geoengineering" which imply control that people don't have. Of the reports' six recommendations, the first is that right now we can and should work toward mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and on adapting to the impacts of climate change. This work was supported by the U.S. intelligence community, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA), the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

(NOAA), the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States ...

(DOE), and the National Academy of Sciences. At the press briefing on the release of the reports, McNutt expressed preference for the first report over the second: mitigation and adaptation are the way forward (explaining that

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of sunlight, solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body ...

modification carries unknown environmental and governance risks).

Workshop with Pope Francis

In May 2014, McNutt and a group of international scholars and scientists participated in a workshop with

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

organized by the

Pontifical Academy of Sciences The Pontifical Academy of Sciences ( it, Pontificia accademia delle scienze, la, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the math ...

and the

Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences ( la, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum Socialium, or PASS) is a pontifical academy established on 1 January 1994 by Pope John Paul II and is headquartered in the Casina Pio IV in Vatican City. It operate ...

. By invitation, McNutt presented a paper, "The Risks of Rising Seas to Coastal Populations." In a September editorial in ''Science'', McNutt discussed "future habitability and sustainability of this planet" and advocated for United Nations

Sustainable Development Goals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked objectives designed to serve as a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future".United Nations (2017) R ...

which the group wished to adopt. She was a signatory of the workshop report. In advance of the ''

Laudato si' ''Laudato si (''Praise Be to You'') is the second encyclical of Pope Francis. The encyclical has the subtitle "on care for our common home". In it, the pope critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, laments environmental degradati ...

'' papal

encyclical An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally fro ...

of May–June 2015, the leadership council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, of which McNutt is a member, released eight criteria for climate change mitigation, which they hoped would be addressed by the

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Conve ...

Awards and honors

McNutt was elected a

Foreign member of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

, and a member of the

, the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

, and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. She is a fellow for the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's acti ...

, the

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitchc ...

, the

and the

International Association of Geodesy ) , merged = , successor = , formation = , founder = , founding_location = , extinction = , merger = , type = scholarly society , tax_id ...

. She is a past president of the

(2000–2002) and current president of the

(2016-2022). She holds honorary doctorates from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

(2021),

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...

(2019),

Worcester Polytechnic Institute '' , mottoeng = "Theory and Practice" , established = , former_name = Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science (1865-1886) , type = Private research university , endowm ...

(2018),

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

(2018),

Colorado School of Mines The Colorado School of Mines, informally called Mines, is a public research university in Golden, Colorado, founded in 1874. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, with a focus on ener ...

(2011)

Monmouth University Monmouth University is a private university in West Long Branch, New Jersey. Founded in 1933 as Monmouth Junior College, it became Monmouth College in 1956 and Monmouth University in 1995 after receiving its charter. There are about 4,400 full ...

(2010), the University of Minnesota (2004), and Colorado College (1989). McNutt was also recognized as an Outstanding Alumni in 2004 by the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

. She chaired the President's Panel on Ocean Exploration under President Bill Clinton. McNutt chaired the board of governors of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions which merged to become Consortium for Ocean Leadership for which she was trustee. She serves on evaluation and advisory boards for institutions including the

Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey Bay Aquarium is a nonprofit public aquarium in Monterey, California. Known for its regional focus on the marine habitats of Monterey Bay, it was the first to exhibit a living kelp forest when it opened in October 1984. Its biologists ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and ''

'' magazine, and th
Journal of Science Policy and Governance
In 1988, McNutt won the Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union, presented for outstanding research by a young scientist, and in 2007 she won the AGU's

Maurice Ewing Medal Two international geophysical societies offer awards each year which are named in honor of Maurice Ewing; these are the American Geophysical Union and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists: __TOC__ AGU Ewing Medal The Maurice Ewing Medal is awa ...

for her contributions to deep-sea exploration and her leadership role in the ocean sciences. In 2002,

Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine Businesses and brands * DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation'' * D ...

magazine named McNutt one of the top fifty women in science. In 2003 she was named Scientist of the Year by the ARCS Foundation. The

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi ...

awarded the

Meritorious Service Medal A Meritorious Service Medal is an award presented to denote acts of meritorious service, and sometimes gallantry, that are worthy of recognition. Notable medals with similar names include: *Meritorious Civilian Service Award * Meritorious Service Me ...

to McNutt for her service during the

. McNutt is a member of the 2012 USA Science & Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty, a collection of the most influential scientists and engineers in the United States that are dedicated to reinvigorating the interest of young people in science and engineering. McNutt won the 2017 DRI Nevada Medal. In 2021, was elected as a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

"for elucidation of lithosphere geomechanics and leadership in earth resources engineering".

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

* *–2016 biography Videos * * – one hour speech * at ''The Washington Post'' * at ''The Washington Post'' *

Family and education

Early years

Research

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

U.S. Geological Survey

Appointment

BP oil spill

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

USGS peer review process

Afghan mineral wealth

Map of Jupiter's moon Io

Animal extinction and disease

Federal "Big Data" initiative

Energy: fossil fuels, fracking and biofuel

Earthquakes: hazard reduction, drill, research

Landsat

Departure

Exit summary

''Science'' tenure

Open access: ''Science Advances''

Keystone XL

Climate engineering

Meeting with Li Keqiang in China

Statistical review

Cover photo and controversies

Support for science

Retraction

Family of journals expands

National Academy of Sciences

Climate intervention

Workshop with Pope Francis

Awards and honors

Selected publications

See also

References

External links

Further reading