Lawson Brigham

Lawson Brigham

Distinguished Fellow and Faculty Member
International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Lawson Brigham

Dr. Lawson W. Brigham is Distinguished Fellow and Faculty Member at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).  He is also a Fellow at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s Center for Arctic Study and Policy, and Senior Fellow at the Institute of the North in Anchorage.  Captain Brigham was a career Coast Guard officer and commanded four cutters including the icebreaker Polar Sea on Arctic & Antarctic expeditions. During 2004-09 he was chair of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment. Dr. Brigham has been a research fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; a faculty member of the Coast Guard Academy, the Naval Postgraduate School, and UAF (as Distinguished Professor of Geography & Arctic Policy); and, Alaska Director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.  He is a graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, a Naval War College distinguished graduate, and holds graduate degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (MS) and Cambridge University (MPhil & PhD).  His research interests have focused on the Russian maritime Arctic, environmental change, polar marine transportation, and polar geopolitics. Dr. Brigham is a Council on Foreign Relations member, was elected to the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research (2013), and awarded the American Polar Society’s Polar Medal (2015).