Woods Hole Research Center
The Woods Hole Research Center addresses pressing environmental issues, including climate change, through scientific and policy initiatives. The Center has projects in the Amazon, the Arctic, Africa, Russia, Alaska, Canada, New England, and the Mid-Atlantic, working in collaboration with a wide variety of partners ranging from NGOs to governments and the United Nations.
The Woods Hole Research Center was established in 1985 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts by George Woodwell. In 2005, Dr. John P. Holdren became the director. Holdren was appointed as President Obama's science advisor in 2009. In June 2011, Dr. Eric Davidson, a WHRC senior scientist, was named Executive Director, serving a two-year term. Senior Scientist Richard A. Houghton stepped in as Acting President in September of 2003. Dr. Houghton holds the George Masters Woodwell Chair for Global Ecology at WHRC, and in 2012 was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. The organization has about 60 staff members.
The Center’s main facility, located on Cape Cod in the town of Falmouth, was completed in 2003. The 19,300 sq ft (1,790 m2) building is composed of an older (ca. 1874) now fully renovated building, formerly used as a summer home, and a new wing. The building is noted for its high energy performance and burns no fossil fuels onsite in the operation of the building. It uses about 25% the energy of a conventionally constructed building of its size, and is run, in part, by a 100kW wind turbine, 25kW of photovoltaics, solar hot water, and a ground source heat pump. Extensive details of meteorological conditions, energy use, and building energy use (real-time and historic) are available at the WHRC web site. The building was designed by noted "green" architectural firm, William McDonough + Partners of Charlottesville, Virginia. Marc Rosenbaum of Energysmiths was the energy systems engineer. The building was constructed by the firm of T.R. White.