Eddy Carmack

While earning his Master's degree at the University of Washington in 1969, Carmack was offered a position on an Arctic research trip as a replacement for a colleague.[2]

After graduating, Carmack worked for Environment Canada studying Canadian lakes and rivers, before switching to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to research Arctic ice and oceans.[3] During the 1994 Canada/United States expedition to the North Pole on CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, Carmack was along as Canada’s chief scientist.[2] From 2006 until 2015, Carmack also served as the Sydney Chapman Chair at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.[4]

In 2007, Carmack led a research project titled The Canada's Three Oceans (C3O) in order to study changes in the Arctic Ocean due to global warming, including ice cover retreat, species invasion, hypoxia and acidification.[5] While collecting data, Carmack would drop bottles into the Arctic water containing messages from elementary school students and his contact information to track how the changes in the Arctic can spread into other bodies of water.[6] Later that year, he received the Massey Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his outstanding work in ocean science.[7]

In 2009, Carmack received the J.P. Tully Medal in Oceanography from the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.[8] He would later be appointed the Program Research Director of the Resilience Alliance Board in 2011[9] and retire from the Institute of Ocean Sciences.[10] In 2016, Carmack was replaced as the Sydney Chapman Chair at the University of Alaska Fairbanks by mathematical physicist Jürgen Kurths.[11] Two years later, he was the recipient of the Mohn Prize from the Arctic University of Norway.[12] In 2019, Carmack was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.[13]