John Melack (BA Cornell; PhD Duke) leads a research program in limnology, biogeochemistry, aquatic ecology, and remote sensing that has active studies in tropical Brazil, coastal catchments in California, and alpine and saline lakes in the Sierra Nevada. He conducted research in tropical Africa for a decade and has studied lakes, rivers, wetlands, and catchments in Australia, Japan, central Asia, and the southeastern United States.

Dr. Melack has published more than 200 scientific papers, edited two books and a special issue of Limnology and Ocenography, and written numerous book reviews and technical, workshop, and committee reports. He serves on the editorial boards of Biogeochemistry and Hydrobiologia and has served on the editorial boards of Ecological Applications and Limnology and Oceanography. He is a member of the Science Steering Committee for the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia and the Independent Science Board for the California Bay-Delta Authority’s CALFED Bay-Delta Program, and is an elected U.S. representative to the International Society of Limnology.

Previously, Dr. Melack was president of the International Society for Salt Lake Research, and for the past six years he has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Geophysical and Environmental Data. He has represented the limnological community on NASA’s Science Steering Committee for the Earth Observing System and served on the National Academy of Sciences committee that prepared report titled The Mono Basin Ecosystem-Effects of Changing Lake Level. He has also served for 25 years as the faculty manager of the Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve, a teaching, research, and outreach facility in the eastern Sierra Nevada.