Janet Campbell
Ph.D. Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1973
Research Areas
Bio-optical oceanography, remote sensing, applied statistics
Research Emphasis
Janet Campbell retired from the University of New Hampshire in March 2011. During her tenure she was the director of the Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory, one of four Centers in the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS). She was also the Director of the Center of Excellence for Coastal Ocean Observation and Analysis (COOA) that was established in August 2002 as part of NOAA's Coastal Observation Technology System. The centers specialize in the development of new methodologies for understanding coastal marine ecosystems, the fate of land-derived carbon and other elements in the coastal ocean, and the effect of climate change and human activity on the coastal ocean. COOA is working in partnership with other institutions in the northeast to form a regional coastal program of coastal ocean observations, analysis, and enabling technology development focused on delivering information useful to scientists, educations, resource managers, policy makers, and of interest to the general public.
Dr. Campbell lead the Bio-Optical Oceanography Group, an informal team of research scientists and graduate students within the Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory of EOS. Bio-optical oceanography is an emerging field of ocean science that concerns the interaction of light with marine organisms and biogeochemical processes. This multidisciplinary field combines the physics of radiative transfer, the biology of photosynthesis, phytoplankton ecology, and the photochemistry of materials found in the sea. It is also the basis for ocean color remote sensing, which is the focus of the group's NASA-funded research projects.
The Bio-Optical Oceanography Group is developing techniques for studying biological and biogeochemical processes in the ocean using satellite remote sensors. Their primary sources of data are ocean color satellite sensors such as the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). They are modeling the effects of phytoplankton, dissolved organic materials, suspended sediments, and other particles on the spectral radiance measured by these satellites, and exploring inversion techniques for using the satellite ocean color data to map these substances. In addition, techniques are being developed for estimating primary productivity in coastal waters, and for blending regional models for coastal applications.
Dr. Campbell is a member of NASA's Ocean Color Science Team and the MODIS Instrument Team. She has been at UNH since 1993, and is a member of the Graduate Faculty in the Earth Sciences Department. Between 1997-1999, she served as the Program Manager for Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Before coming to UNH she was a research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor, Maine (1982-1993), where she established and directed the remote sensing computer facility. She previously worked as an Aerospace Technologist/Engineer at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. She holds a Ph.D. degree in statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a Masters degree in mathematics from Vanderbilt University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics, with high honors, from Mary Baldwin College.
