Dr. Beth Holland uses observations and models to understand carbon and nitrogen cycles crossing scales from ecosystems to the globe. Her work integrates an understanding of ecosystem biogeochemistry and atmospheric chemistry to quantify the interactions of the carbon and nitrogen cycles. She is a recognized leader in the understanding of the global nitrogen cycle and its role in the climate and earth systems.
Dr. Holland was a lead author of the Working Group 1 Reports of the Third and Fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessments, which received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, as well as the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Dr. Holland is a Leopold Fellow, was a founding member of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena Germany, and served on the scientific advisory board for the United Kingdom’s Quantification and Understanding of the Earth System Program. She is a devoted educator, has led a NATO Advanced Study Institute on Soils and Global Change, and co-led two Advanced Study Program Colloquia, on Regional Biogeochemistry and Asia in the 21st Century.
In addition to the science, Dr. Holland is a glider pilot having flown in Colorado, Germany and New Zealand and was one of the only women to serve on the Board of the Soaring Society of Boulder in its 50-year history. She has flown over Mount Cook and in the mountain wave up to 26,000 ft. She was a ski mountaineer, telemark and alpine ski racer, having telemarked starting in the early 1980s. She has also been a rock climber for more than 15 years. She has climbed, skied, or hiked in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Alabama, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Argentina and Chile. She is also a whitewater boater graduating to more difficult class 4 water. She started in a whitewater canoe, took up rowing a 14 foot dory, and then kayaking so that her teenage daughter had someone to boat with. Last year, she started rowing rafts to make the transition to harder water easier. She rowed a 16 ft raft (solo) the 90 miles through Desolation and Gray Canyons last September. Dr. Holland speaks Spanish fluently, is capable in German and French, and understands some Portuguese and Italian.
