Alison Criscitiello

Glaciologist, Co-Founder Girls on Ice Canada

pronouns: she/her/hers

I love the cold. As a Glaciologist, I study the history of sea ice in polar regions using ice core chemistry, which involves long months of living in a tent and drilling ice cores in places like Antarctica, Alaska, the Canadian high Arctic, and Greenland. I am the Director of the Canadian Ice Core Lab at University of Alberta, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary. I hold a BA in Earth and Environmental Science (Wesleyan University), an MA in Geophysics (Columbia University), and the first PhD in Glaciology ever conferred by MIT.

When I'm not busy shivering for science, I seek out the cold for fun, whether working as a climbing ranger in the national parks or guiding expeditions to major peaks in the Andes, Alaska, and the Himalaya. In 2010, I led the first all-women’s ascent of Pinnacle Peak (6955m) in the Indian Himalaya. Before that, I was awarded the American Alpine Club (AAC)'s Under 25 Mountaineering Fellowship Fund Grant, and I subsequently won the AAC's Live Your Dream grant for an expedition to the Little Switzerland area of the Central Alaska Range. During that expedition, my climbing partner and I made pioneering first all-female ascents on mixed routes off the Pika Glacier. In 2015 I was awarded the AAC Lara Kellogg and Scott Fischer Conservation Grants for Borderski, my winter ski traverse of Tajikistan's border in the eastern Pamirs with two other Canadian women. In 2016 I was awarded the Mugs Stump award and John Lauchlan Award to attempt a first ascent in the Indian Himalaya.

Girls on Ice Canada Co-Founder

Girls on Ice Canada Onsite Coordinator 2018