Elke Bergholz teaches high school Biology at the United Nations International School in New York City. Over the course of her career she has taught Life Science, Physical Science, General and Honors Biology, Environmental Science, AP Biology, Biotechnology, Human Physiology, and Biology for the International Baccalaureate, an internationally accepted high school diploma. Ms. Bergholz has advised an after school river monitoring student group for several years and is a research mentor to several students completing independent biology research. Prior to teaching, Ms. Bergholz conducted research for many years in different parts of the world in marine biology, fisheries biology, and oceanography. Ms. Bergholz traveled to Antarctica in 1999 as a TEA teacher to collect data on atmospheric ozone and will return with Dr. David Hoffman to continue their studies.

David Hofmann began his career at the University of Wyoming, leading an atmospheric physics group that used large balloons to study the stratosphere. During the 1980’s his group was at the forefront of stratospheric aerosol and Antarctic ozone hole studies. In 1990 Dr. Hofmann assumed leadership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) global greenhouse gas and ozone monitoring efforts. His group at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, monitors important greenhouse gases at many sites around the world, including permanent stations in the Arctic at Barrow, Alaska, and the Antarctic at the South Pole Station.

The team will be working from the South Pole Station in Antarctica. The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is the southernmost continually inhabited place on the planet. Its name honors Roald Amundsen who reached the South Pole in 1911 and Robert F. Scott who reached the South Pole in 1912.