Chris Elfring

Chris Elfring is Executive Director of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)’s Gulf Research Program. Her role, with guidance from a carefully selected Advisory Group, is to guide the program’s planning and initial implementation, building from the general requirements in the Settlement Agreement to a multi-faceted science program of lasting impact. She is responsible for strategic planning, community outreach, interactions with the relevant stakeholders and scientific advisors, staff and budget management, and implementation as activities are designed. Previously, Ms. Elfring was Director of both the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC) and the Polar Research Board (PRB). Her projects addressed polar science (covering issues in the Arctic, Antarctic, and cold regions, from icebreakers to research priorities in Antarctica) and weather and climate science (covering issues from climate modeling and climate change impacts to weather forecasting and urban meteorology). She provided strategic leadership to the suite of activities known as “America’s Climate Choices.” She was a leader in the planning of International Polar Year 2007-2008, and has a geographic feature in Antarctica, Elfring Peak, named in her honor of her polar science work. Ms. Elfring has a long-standing interest in the policy dimensions of science and communicating science to non-scientists. She began her career in Washington as a AAAS Science Fellow in 1979. In 2012, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) awarded her the Cleveland Abbe Award for Distinguished Service to the Atmospheric Sciences and she was elected an AMS Fellow.