Grace A. Whittier Endowed Chair in Science
Established in 1992, this chair was made possible by estate gifts from long-time Northfield resident Grace Whittier and her sister Gladys (Petie) Coleman of California. The Buck Hill ski area in Burnsville was included as part of the Whittier estate, which also included bequests to Carleton College and the City of Northfield. Physics professor James Cederberg was the first holder of this chair until his retirement in 2005.
Dr. Jacobel is a member of both the physics and environmental studies departments and director of the Center for Geophysical Studies of Ice and Climate, an NSF sponsored research project based at St. Olaf. His teaching focuses on geophysics—the application of physics to the study of the earth—and on global climate change. The main goal of his research, and of the Center, is to understand the response of glaciers and ice sheets in various parts of the world to global climate change; the main tools are ice-penetrating radar and satellite imagery. On several occasions, this quest has led him and several advanced students to research stations in Antarctica. In 2003 the United States Board on Geographic Names named an Antarctic glacier the "Jacobel Glacier" (77 ° 44 ′ 00 ″ S, 148 ° 17 ′ 00 ″ W) in recognition of Jacobel’s research.
