Dr. M Jackson explores what happens to an Icelandic community as their local glaciers disappear. Profoundly hopeful, Jackson’s talk shows how ice influences people just as much as people influence ice.
Dr. M Jackson is a geographer, adventurer, TED Fellow, and National Geographic Society Explorer. M earned a doctorate from the University of Oregon in geography and glaciology, where she examined how climate change transformed people and glacier communities in Iceland. A veteran three-time U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Turkey and Iceland, M currently serves as a U.S. Fulbright Ambassador. M also serves as an Arctic Expert for the National Geographic Society over the last nine years, holds a Masters of Science degree from the University of Montana, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia.
She’s worked for over a decade in the Arctic chronicling climate change and communities, guiding backcountry trips and exploring glacial systems. Her 2015 memoir While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change weaves together the parallel stories of what happens when the climates of a family and a planet change. Her 2019 book, The Secret Lives of Glaciers, explores the profound impacts of glacier change on the human and physical geography of Iceland. She is currently at work on In Tangible Ice, a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project partnering with explorers, filmmakers, and scientists that examines the socio-physical dimensions of glacier retreat in near-glacier communities within all eight circumpolar nations.