Translational Environmental Research

Dr. Sherrill is a Professor in the Epidemiology & Biostatistics Division and Associate Dean of Research in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of Colorado in 1987 and has been a faculty member at the University of Arizona since 1988. He is currently director of the Arizona Clinical Research Training Program, a graduate certificate program for training physicians on the skills necessary for successful careers in clinical research. He is known internationally for his work in methodology for longitudinal analysis and has published several review articles on this topic. In addition, he teaches two advanced biostatistics courses for the Biostatistics MPH and Ph.D. graduate degree programs. His research interests include the natural history of respiratory diseases, in particular asthma, and assessment of risk factors for development of respiratory diseases. He has been an author and co-author on multiple scientific papers resulting from this research.

Thomas Swetnam's primary interests are the applications and teaching of dendrochronology in environmental sciences. He is also keenly interested in the applications of forest and disturbance ecology to land management. He conducts research in forest disturbance history and forest ecology, using tree rings to reconstruct histories of forest fires, insect outbreaks, forest age structures, and climatic variations.

Jake Weltzin assumed his position as Executive Director of the USA-NPN in August, 2007. Jake’s interest in natural history developed as he grew up in Alaska and as an exchange student in the Australian outback. He obtained his B.S. from Colorado State University, M.S. from Texas A&M University, and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Notre Dame, Jake went to the University of Tennessee, where he served as Assistant and then Associate Professor.

Jake’s interests encompass how the structure and function of plant communities and ecosystems might respond to global environmental change, including atmospheric chemistry, climate change, and biological invasions. His research spans temperate and tropical grasslands and savannas, temperate woodlands, deciduous forest, and sub-boreal peatlands. His recent experience as a science administrator at the National Science Foundation underscored the need to foster large-scale science initiatives such as USA-NPN. As it's first Executive Director, Jake’s vision for USA-NPN is “to develop a continental-scale instrument for integrative assessment of global change that simultaneously serves as an outreach and educational platform for citizens and educators.”

Jonathan Overpeck, or "Peck" as he prefers to be called, is a founding co-director of the Institute of the Environment, as well as a Professor of Geosciences and a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. He received his BA from Hamilton College, followed by a MSc and PhD from Brown University. Jonathan has published over 130 papers in climate and the environmental sciences, and recently served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Nobel Prize winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment (2007). He has also been awarded the US Department of Commerce Bronze and Gold Medals, as well as the Walter Orr Roberts award of the American Meteorological Society, for his interdisciplinary research. Overpeck has also been a Guggenheim Fellow, was the 2005 American Geophysical Union Bjerknes Lecturer, and won, with co-authors, the 2008 NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Outstanding Scientific Paper Award. Peck is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.

Before coming to The University of Arizona, Peck was the founding director of the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program and also the World Data Center For Paleoclimatology, both in Boulder, Colorado. While in Boulder, he was also a Fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.

Peck has active research programs in North America, South America, Africa and monsoon Asia, most commonly focused on providing paleoenvironmental insights on how key aspects of the Earth’s climate system may change in the future. Although much of Peck's work focuses on terrestrial system, he has also participated research cruises to the Arabian Sea, and tropical Atlantic. Peck was co-chief scientist with Larry Peterson of the cruise that began the long and rich history of work involving sediments from the Cariaco Basin in the southern Caribbean. Peck also has a strong interest in interactions, past, current and future between climate, ice sheets and sea level.

eck is the director of The University of Arizona Program in Translational Environmental Research, and commits significant time as principal investigator of the Climate Assessment for The Southwest Project (CLIMAS), one of the several NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) programs. In all of his work, Peck works hard to promote interdisciplinary perspectives, and also enhance the way that knowledge is communicated to, and used by, the public.

Overpeck serves on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science Magazine, and is a founding co-editor of The Edge book series on Environmental Science, Law and Policy, a publication of the University of Arizona Press. He teaches in the areas of environmental science, paleoenvironmental (especially climate) dynamics, and science communication.