With support from a Guarini School Alumni Research Award, Jacob Chalif, a master’s student in Earth and Planetary Sciences, spent three weeks this spring drilling ice cores on Canada’s Eclipse Icefield to study wildfire smoke, pollution and climate history preserved in the ice.
What program are you in, and what drew you to this field of study?
I’m a master’s student in Earth and Planetary Sciences, with a research focus of ice and climate science. My research makes use of ice core geochemistry to reconstruct past atmospheric composition and environmental variability.
I’ve always been passionate about the environment, I enjoy tinkering, and I love being outside, and this work allows me to do all of that and more while thinking every day about issues I care deeply about. I’ll add that for most of my work, I go to or think about cold and icy places — it’s no surprise my two favorite movies growing up were Seven Below (I still cry during it) and The Day After Tomorrow (the main character of which studies ice cores)!
Where do you consider your hometown, and how has your background or early experiences influenced your path into your field of study?
I grew up on Long Island in Huntington, New York (atop a large glacial moraine!) but it was my time outside Long Island that most shaped me. Each summer, we spent a week car camping in the Adirondacks. I even convinced my family to go hiking up there during the winter some years.
There, I developed a lifelong passion for the environment and I learned to enjoy blistery cold winter mountain landscapes. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a sign approaching treeline that said something to the effect of “you are entering an Arctic environment” — years later, having camped out on the Antarctic ice sheet for 3 months, I guess you could say I’m attracted to cold places.
More than anything, I built a lasting love for the woods, which drove me to college in the north country, and there I discovered climate science.
Where did you earn your undergraduate degree, and how did your academic journey lead you to Dartmouth?
I went to Dartmouth (class of 2021) intending to major in government, history, QSS, or some combination. Earth science was not on my radar. In the Outing Club, many of my friends studied Earth sciences so I took a class (loved it) and eventually went on the Stretch (a highlight of my Dartmouth experience).
It wasn’t until I took an upper-level climate science course during my junior year (weeks before the world shut down for Covid) with Professor Erich Osterberg that I began thinking a career in research might be for me. I did a senior thesis (remotely), and joined his lab as a post-bacc lab manager for 3 years, heading up the ice core melter facility at Dartmouth, before enrolling as an MS student in 2024.
What excites you about your research?
Broadly, I study Earth’s paleoclimate, but what I love about my science is that every project is inherently interdisciplinary. My MS thesis uses black carbon measurements in an Alaskan ice core as a proxy to reconstruct past wildfire burning in Siberia. This work requires diving deep into fire-ecosystem dynamics, air pollution, atmospheric aerosols and chemistry, long-term climate change, glaciology, high-mountain meteorology, analytic chemistry, and more.
At the same time, in other work, I think about phytoplankton in the ocean, toxic lead pollution, processes occurring under the Antarctic ice sheet, dust storms in Asia, designing new analytic capabilities in our lab, interpreting the world’s oldest ice cores, or the climate impact resulting from the procession of Chinese dynasties. Every day brings something new, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Which faculty members are you collaborating with on your research, and how have their mentorship or research perspectives shaped your approach?
I work with Professor Erich Osterberg, who always reminds me that science is storytelling. When you write a paper, that paper needs to read like a good story — a story backed up by exhaustive evidence, but a story nonetheless.
The same goes for when you give talks to peers, to the public, lead a lecture, talk to the media, or give a one-minute elevator pitch about your work. When you get lost in the weeds of a project, it’s always useful to zoom out and see the larger story.
Beyond this conceptual framing, Erich has been an enthusiastic supporter of my wildest ideas, always willing to pursue collaborations and expand our projects to get the best science done, giving me independence to lead my own research, and helping me publish work even as a junior scientist that in some ways goes against prevailing narratives. He’s open to any story, as long as the evidence is sound.
How has the Alumni Research Award helped advance your current project, and what new possibilities will it create for your upcoming field and lab work?
With the support of the Alumni Research Award, I spent three weeks camped on the Eclipse Icefield in May-June 2026. Eclipse is located in the St. Elias Mountains in Canada’s Yukon Territory. I joined a group composed primarily of glaciologists and geophysicists from the University of Maine who were using radar to understand the ice flow and glaciological dynamics at Eclipse.
I joined the project to drill a series of shallow firn cores, which will allow me to understand the recent history of pollution, wildfire smoke, and climate at the site. This is an extension of my MS thesis, in which I worked on similar topics using ice from Denali National Park. Already, our results from this field season have been stark: despite that we were 10,000 feet high in the middle of the world’s largest non-polar icefield, temperatures got so hot during the day that we were forced to invert our schedule and drill ice cores at night when it was colder.
We measured the temperature of the snowpack, and it is warming at an astounding rate, much faster than we expected, which will very soon compromise paleoclimate archives preserved in the ice there.
Back in the lab, I’m working with researchers at Dartmouth, Colby College, and the University of Maine to analyze the geochemistry of the ice. I’m particularly excited for my work with Vivien Taylor, a researcher in our department, who will be measuring PFAS (“forever chemicals”) in the ice — the first time we’ve ever been able to measure this in ice from this area — which will tell us about how PFAS is transported in the atmosphere and distributed globally.
Which resources, career support programs, or professional development opportunities at the Guarini School have been most valuable to you, and how have they impacted your experience?
Guarini is a fantastic resource for Dartmouth graduate students. They have generously supported my field work through this award, as well as conference travel this past winter, when I was invited to Chicago to speak at the Climate of Hope conference alongside renowned climate scientist Richard Alley.
That conference was oriented at connecting real, hard science to high school teachers and students, but framing it ultimately around a message of hope rather than despair.
Outside of your studies, what are some of your hobbies or creative interests?
I am an avid hiker (I’ve completed all 4000’ mountains in NY, VT, and NH — I’m coming for you, Maine!), brewer, reader, gardener, cook, board-game player, tender of chickens, and walker of dogs. Recently I have enjoyed dabbling in writing my own science fiction.
What is your favourite place or activity at Dartmouth or in the Upper Valley, and why?
How can I choose just one! I think my favorite Dartmouth/Upper Valley activity is cabin camping in the Dartmouth Outing Club’s chain of cabins, or visiting the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. I bring a book and some tea, and it’s a phenomenal way to disconnect and enjoy life in the woods.
