2007 PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Steve Running — Global Guru

UM Regents Professor of Ecology Steve Running has been described as an old tree-hugger who became a rocket scientist.

During his three decades at the University, the ecologist has used orbiting satellites to study the global environment. The Internet first arrived at UM so Running’s lab, the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, could contribute software for NASA projects. His department eventually wrote code for the primary instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites — eyes in the sky that provide daily snapshots of deforestation,
wildfires and a host of other land and ocean processes.

With these credentials, in 2004 Running was asked to be lead author of the North American ecology section of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report. International meetings with teams from the other 180 IPCC member nations followed, as well as three report drafts.

Imagine Running’s surprise when the entire IPCC committee, along with former Vice President Al Gore of “An Inconvenient Truth” fame, earned the Nobel Peace Prize in October for
collective efforts to reveal the extent of global warming.

Besides Running, the only other UM faculty member ever associated with the Nobel is Harold Urey (1893-1981), who received the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering heavy hydrogen, also called deuterium.

“This is such an unimaginable honor, and I’m just stunned,” Running says. “Nobody on the IPCC committee expected this award because a Nobel Peace Prize has never gone to a scientific committee before.”

Not bad for an old tree-hugger.

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