Keeping Our Heads Above Water
Periodic Updating of Science-Based Sea-Level Rise Projection
Guest Speaker Bio
Donald Friedrich Boesch, Ph.D. is President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). From 1990 to 2017 he served as UMCES President; for the last nine of those years, he was also Vice Chancellor for Environmental Sustainability of the University System of Maryland.
Don Boesch received a B.S. in biology from Tulane University and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the College of William and Mary. Before coming to Maryland, he was a faculty member at William and Mary and the Louisiana State University. Don served on the Chesapeake Bay Cabinet under Governors Schafer, Glendening, Ehrlich, O’Malley and Hogan, and as a member of the Maryland Commission on Climate Change. He advised members of the General Assembly in crafting key legislation addressing the climate crisis, including the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Acts of 2009 and 2012 and the 2022 Climate Solutions Now Act. He continues to contribute to Maryland’s response to climate change, leading the recent update of Sea-Level Rise Projections for Maryland 2023.
Don has served on numerous committees and boards for U.S. federal agencies and for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He was a contributing author to the first and second U.S. National Climate Assessments. He served chair of the Academies’ Ocean Studies Board and was a contributing author to the America’s Climate Choices report. In 2010 he was appointed by President Obama as one of seven members of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Oil Spill and the Future of Offshore Drilling.