Jeffrey Morisette ’90 Heads the North Central Climate Science Center

By Doug Goodnough

So, just what can you do with a degree in mathematics?

How about . . .

•  Work for NASA interpreting satellite data,
•  Map habitat from weather patterns and predicted changes in climate,
•  Bring a data-driven approach to earth and environmental sciences,
•  Run a multimillion dollar, multi-state science center for the federal government.

Dr. Jeffrey Morisette ’90 has accomplished all those things since graduating from Siena Heights University. Currently the director of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s North Central Climate Science Center, Morisette works with multiple agencies and organizations to help development long-term strategies and forecasts for what he believes is a rapidly changing climate.

“The science behind climate change is very consistent and very concerning,” said Morisette, who took over his current post in Ft. Collins, Colo., in February 2012. “The climate we’ll be experiencing in the future may very well be like nothing we have seen before. So, it’s kind of new territory, climate change and how this is going to impact fish and wildlife and humans in general. It’s a brave new world. The science isn’t trivial, either.”

Morisette works with earth and environmental scientists on a daily basis, traveling through the region his center serves, which includes Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and parts of Montana, including the Yellowstone National Park area. According to the Department of the Interior, the North Central CSC is part of a network of eight centers created to provide scientific information, tools and techniques to use in managing land, water, wildlife and cultural resources, which are then used to monitor, anticipate and adapt to climate change.

“I really enjoy bringing a systems engineering approach to connect this climate information to the ecological community,” Morisette said. “There’s a lot of climate scientists and a lot of ecologists. I enjoy being at the intersection of those two in kind of a high-tech way.”

Morisette, who completed his master’s degree in applied statistics from Oakland University and his doctorate in philosophy from North Carolina State University, said his academic background has served him well in his current position.

In fact, he points to the “foundational” courses such as statistics with Siena Heights faculty member Dr. Tim Husband and philosophy with Dr. Mark Schersten and the late Sister Pat Hogan as formational—as was the mission of Siena Heights.

“Tim Husband’s (statistics) class gave me an appreciation for variability in data and separating that from an actual signal,” Morisette said.

“It started me on this path. Understanding issues of variability and uncertainty are critical in the realm of both climate and ecological processes. … Thinking of the competence and purposeful has remained with me to this day.”

Morisette said he enjoys the relationships he has made during his career and calls the bureaucracy of his current job “sometimes the bane of my existence.”

“It just can be sometimes overwhelming,” he said. “But it’s the only way to get it done.”

While he understands some people’s concern that government is “too big,” he also said he has an insider’s appreciation for what government does, especially in the sciences.

“We understand each other’s roles and what we are trying to do at the regional level,” Morisette said of the multiple agencies the NC CSC collaborates with. “We try to avoid stepping on toes and try to be as efficient as possible.”

Morisette gets a chance to travel through the region teaching courses on various environmental subjects. He recently returned from a session in Jackson, Wyo., where he taught a vulnerability assessment on climate change. That assessment included things like invasive species of plants, glacier melt and other management targets in the greater Yellowstone area—even habitat food for grizzly bear.

“It’s a beautiful area to work in,” said Morisette, who moved out west partly because of his love of skiing and the outdoors, especially the nearby Rocky Mountains. His wife, Elizabeth, is an artist who uses recycled and repurposed objects in her work. They currently are raising two daughters, Twyla (2) and Clementine (14).

Morisette said he likes a quote from former astronaut and climate scientist Piers Sellers that says, “you can have your own opinion but not your own facts.” Morisette believes numbers don’t lie. His job is interpreting those numbers when predicting and forecasting future climate change patterns.

“Unequivocally, humans have influenced the environment,” said Morisette, who points to research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as support. “What we try to do is look at the climate information that relates to heat, precipitation and the relationship between the two and try to figure out what the impacts are.”

His center has the latest technology at his fingertips, including “mini clusters” of super computers (100 processors or more) and a 24-monitor array that take up an entire wall.

“We kind of peel off the ‘black box’ of science so (people) can better understand it,” Morisette said.

But he also relishes the human side of his job, including working with the Native American tribes in his area. He said many Native Americans view nature as relational instead of resource-driven, and that is something mainstream culture could embrace.

Morisette said his long-term purpose is to develop “ways the ecological community can adapt and mitigate climate change as we head into uncharted territory.”

“Translating that climate information, what it means to living things, especially the degree of variability,” he said, “that’s where a statistical and mathematical understanding of what that means is helpful.”