Jaafar El-Awady, professor of mechanical engineering and fellow at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI), is leading a team that has been selected to receive funding from the university’s Nexus Awards Program. The team’s project, “Cryosphere 2025,” is one of forty research, teaching, and convening endeavors to be based at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
The purpose of the five-day conference is to catalyze innovative solutions to the rapid decline of Earth’s cryosphere using an interdisciplinary approach spanning science, engineering, and policy. Cryospheric systems include permafrost, glaciers, snow, and ice sheets, and they are responsible for preserving a lion’s share of the global freshwater supply. Depletion of the Earth’s cryosphere could potentially have catastrophic effects on coastal habitats and weather, water security, infrastructure, human livelihoods, and cultures.
“The rapid decline of Earth’s cryosphere threatens water resources for billions worldwide and for future generations,” El-Awady said. “By convening cross-disciplinary experts at the Cryosphere 2025 conference, we aim to spur and develop urgently needed solutions to monitor and preserve the planet’s vital ice-water systems. The JHU Bloomberg Center in D.C. offers an ideal environment for the collaborations needed to advance science, policy, and action on this critical challenge for our planet’s future.”
Jaafar El-Awady
El-Awady said the goals are to provide a comprehensive view of monitoring cryospheric changes, to develop protective technologies and adaptations, to inform national and global conservation policies, and to assess ecological, geopolitical, and human impacts. The intended outcomes are new research collaborations, proposals for evidence-based interventions, and peer-reviewed perspective papers synthesizing actionable pathways for cryosphere preservation and climate resilience.
Approximately 200 participants, including a mix of JHU faculty, researchers, and students, external researchers and students, policymakers, and industry experts, are expected to attend.
Tamer Zaki, professor of mechanical engineering and a HEMI fellow, is also a member of the team, which includes Samuel Myers (BSPH), Alexandra Phelan (BSPH), Christopher Stiles (WSE), and Benjamin Zaitchik (KSAS).