Helen Amanda Fricker is a Professor of Geophysics in the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Her research focuses on ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland and their role in the climate system.  She uses a combination of satellite radar and laser altimetry and other remote-sensing data to understand ice sheet processes. Professor Fricker is widely recognized for her discovery of active sub-glacial lakes, and she has shown that these lakes form dynamic hydrologic systems, where one lake can drain into another in a short period of time. She is also known for her innovative research into Antarctic ice shelf mass budget processes such as iceberg calving and basal melting and freezing.

Fricker received her B.Sc., with first-class honors, in mathematics and physics from University College London and her Ph.D. in glaciology from the University of Tasmania. She joined Scripps as a postgraduate researcher. She received the Royal Tasmania Society Doctoral Award for her PhD and the Martha Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica from SCAR in 2010.

Fricker is a member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and was chair of AGU’s Cryospheric Sciences Focus Group. She received the NASA Group Achievement Award for her role in the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) Mission Development Team, and was a member of the ICESat Science Team. She is on the ICESat-2 Science Definition Team and the NASA Sea Level Change Team. She runs the Scripps Glaciology group here at SIO http://glaciology.ucsd.edu

Last updated Jan 2016