Dr. Charles A. Wood

Dr. Charles A. Wood, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Space Studies Department at the University of North Dakota, has been named Director of Education at Columbia University's Biosphere 2 Center near Tucson, Arizona.

Wood will provide new administrative leadership for the academic programs at Biosphere 2 at a time when they are being enhanced and expanded. He will also be responsible for faculty recruitment, faculty evaluation and development, student recruitment, and the development of new academic programs including a new master's degree program. He will also be responsible for student life at the Arizona facility and for Biosphere 2's relationships with its partner institutions, which include William and Mary College, the University of Delaware, Rice University and the University of Notre Dame.

Wood, who earned his Ph.D. in Planetary Geology at Brown University, led the development of SPACE.EDU, one of the nation's first graduate programs to be offered via the Internet. He was also Principal Investigator for Volcano World, a NASA-sponsored educational web site that attracts 4 million visitors each year, and he was a member of the Radar Instrument Team for the Cassini spacecraft mission to Saturn.

Earlier in his career, Wood was a scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where he researched the solar system and terrestrial volcanoes.

"Charles Wood's background is ideal for this senior administrative position," said Dr. Michael Crow, Columbia's Executive Vice Provost for Research. "We are delighted that he will be joining Biosphere 2's management team at a time when we will be significantly expanding our education programs."

Biosphere 2 is part of the Columbia Earth Institute, a broad network of institutes and faculty at Columbia who are collaborating in an effort to understand Earth's processes and the role humans play in them. The university's goal for Biosphere 2 is to develop it into a world center for discourse on earth systems science, policy and management issues.

"I am captivated by the opportunity to help develop innovative programs at the Biosphere 2 Center in support of Columbia's Earth Institute goals," Wood said.

Columbia announced last December its plan to enlarge Biosphere 2 to accommodate 350 students and to expand the size of program offerings at the campus. The new programs and initiatives include plans to:

• Create a master's degree program focused on earth systems science and management policy built around hands-on experience with science and policy;
• Enhance further the capabilities of the laboratory to understand the future of this planet;
• Develop new bio-diversity programs outside of Biosphere 2;
• And create new programs between industry and government to share these activities with the public.

"Biosphere 2's growing reputation as a research institute, combined with its excellent academic and conference facilities, make it a perfect place for leaders from government, industry and the academic world to come together to address the key issues of the new century," said Crow.