Dr. Jerry Brown is awarded IPA Lifetime Achievement Award for 2020 in honour of his many scientific accomplishments and his uninterrupted service to the global permafrost community over a period of nearly 60 years. He has published papers in prestigious journals, edited books and special issues of journals, and produced hundreds of conference papers, and reports. He founded Frozen Ground, and edited it for nearly two decades. He was the organizer and lead author of the IPA Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground-Ice Conditions, the first large-scale map of permafrost using standardized data sets and cartographic representation.
The CALM program was Jerry’s brainchild, and he was instrumental in developing the Arctic Coastal Dynamics program, and the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost, and the Global Geocryological Database.
Jerry served as IPA’s Secretary General and President in 2003-2008, as well as on the IPA Executive Committee. Jerry has superb organizational and interpersonal skills that he has applied tirelessly over nearly six decades on behalf of permafrost science and its practitioners. Jerry has been able to recall the interests, skill sets, accomplishments, names and faces, affiliations, and personal traits of hundreds of individuals, and has put this knowledge together for the benefit of our Association. The IPA is proud to present its Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed by the organization, to Jerry Brown of the United States of America.
The Lifetime Achievement Award may be bestowed by the Association every four years at the International Conference and also at a Regional Conference. Dr Brown was to have received his award at the ICOP originally scheduled for 2020 in Lanzhou, China, but sadly cancelled due to the global pandemic. It was presented on October 28th at the 2021 Regional Conference of Permafrost hosted by the United States Permafrost Association, which was delivered online. Previous Laureates are:
- 2010 Professor J. Ross Mackay (Canada)
- 2012 Professor Nickolai Romanovskiy (Russia)
- 2014 Professor Cheng Guodong (China)
- 2016 Professor Hugh French (Canada)
- 2018 Professor Wilfried Haeberli (Switzerland)
The IPA is proud to recognise all of these senior scientists for their contributions to our discipline.