Director, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and Science Advisor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior McNutt’s appointment in 2009 marked a milestone for USGS -- she is the first female director in the agency’s 130-year history. She directs a multi-disciplinary organization that focuses on biology, geography, geology, geospatial information, and water, and is dedicated to studying the landscape, natural resources, and natural hazards. Most recently she served as president and chief executive officer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Her biography includes a broad range of research interests and numerous honors and awards. She has participated in 15 major oceanographic expeditions and served as chief scientist on more than half of them. Her research has ranged from studies of ocean island volcanism in French Polynesia to continental break-up in the Western United States to uplift of the Tibet Plateau. McNutt studied geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and earned her Ph.D. degree there in earth sciences in 1978. She then spent 3 years with the USGS in California working on earthquake prediction. At MIT she was appointed the Griswold Professor of Geophysics and served as director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Science and Engineering. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of AAAS, American Geophysical Union, and Geological Society of America.