Dr. Roberta Marinelli is Director of the Office of Polar Programs at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).  In this role, she oversees the portfolio of NSF’s science and infrastructure investments in the Arctic, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean that enable discovery and innovation in polar regions.  Dr. Marinelli works closely with federal agency partners in development of policies that support polar research, exploration, and conservation from a global perspective.  Prior joining NSF, Dr. Marinelli was the Dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University (OSU), where she oversaw major research projects, large facilities, and undergraduate and graduate academic programs that span the ocean, the earth system and the human dimension.  

Dr. Marinelli also was the Executive Director of the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California, an endowed position that included oversight of the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island, and development of interdisciplinary research programs to advance sustainability. She received her A. B. in Environmental Studies from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina. Her field of research is biological oceanography, with an emphasis on understanding seafloor biology and geochemistry.

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