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Home / Academics / The Office of Scholarship, Research, and Innovation / Center for Arctic Study and Policy / Dr. Lawson W. Brigham

Dr. Lawson W. Brigham

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Dr. Lawson W. Brigham is Distinguished Professor of Geography and Arctic Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Senior Fellow at the Institute of the North. He is currently a Commissioner on the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission and a member of the U.S. Delegation to the International Maritime Organization in London. During 2005-2009 he was chair of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment and Vice Chair of the Council’s working group on Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment. Dr. Brigham, a native of Shelter Island, New York, was a career U.S. Coast Guard officer serving from 1970-95 and retiring with the rank of Captain. He commanded four Coast Guard cutters including the patrol cutter Point Steele, Great Lakes icebreaker Mobile Bay, the medium endurance cutter Escanaba and the polar icebreaker Polar Sea; he also served as Chief of Strategic Planning at Coast Guard Headquarters. He has participated in more than 15 Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, and during summer 1994 Polar Sea crossed the central Arctic Ocean for science with the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent.

Dr. Brigham has been a research fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a faculty member of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, and Alaska Office Director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. He is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (B.S.), a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval War College, and holds graduate degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (M.S.) and the University of Cambridge (MPhil and Ph.D). His research interests have focused on the Russian maritime Arctic, Arctic climate change, marine transportation, Arctic futures, remote sensing of sea ice, and polar geopolitics. Captain Brigham was a 2008 signer of the American Geographical Society’s Flier’s and Explorer’s Globe, the Society’s historic globe of exploration. This signing was in recognition of Polar Sea’s 1994 voyages becoming the first ship in history to reach the extreme ends of the global ocean. He was named the 2010 Distinguished Alumnus of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and in 2013 was selected a member of the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research. Dr. Brigham is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Arctic.

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Sponsor Family Application

Thank you for submitting your application to be part of the Sponsor Family Program. Your application will be processed in the upcoming week. Coast Guard Academy’s policy on background screening now requires all adults (everyone 18 and older living in the home) who volunteer to mentor, teach, coach or sponsor cadets, whether on or off Coast Guard Academy grounds, to be screened every 5 years. They are required to provide personal information (name, birth date and social security number) for the purpose of conducting a criminal background check.

The Security Officer at the Coast Guard Academy, CWO2 Gina Polkowski, is overseeing this process. Her email is: Gina.M.Polkowski@uscg.mil.

Sponsor Family designations fall into several different categories. Below are the guidelines to help you determine how best to meet the background screening requirement:

  1. If you are Coast Guard active duty you do not need to apply for an additional Background Check. You will be vetted through the Coast Guard system by CWO2 Polkowski.
  2. If you are a Civilian working for the Coast Guard you do not need to apply for an additional Background Check. You will be vetted through the Coast Guard system by CWO2 Polkowski.
  3. If you are non-Coast Guard Active Duty, you are required to provide proof of your current security clearance or National Agency Check that is to be emailed by your Command Security Officer (CSO)/ Security Office to CWO2 Polkowski at  Gina.M.Polkowski@uscg.mil.
  4. If you are non-Coast Guard civilian who has a current security clearance or National Agency check, you are required to provide proof of your current security clearance or National Agency Check that is to be emailed by your Command Security Officer (CSO)/ Security Office to CWO2 Polkowski at  Gina.M.Polkowski@uscg.mil.
  5. All civilians in the families who are 18 years or older and do not have a security clearance or a National Agency Check are required to be vetted through Mind Your Business, the third party vendor hired by the Coast Guard Academy for the vetting process.

After you complete your application, please e-mail the Sponsor Family Program Coordinator at CadetFamilySponsorProgram@uscga.edu. In your e-mail, you must include the e-mail address and phone number of every adult living in the home. The Sponsor Family Coordinator will then initiate the background check process and you will receive an email with further instructions.

Important things to note:

There is a Sponsor Family Training that is a one-hour training which we ask sponsors to attend once every four years. This training is designed to give you an overview of the program, what is expected of you as a sponsor, and what you can expect from your cadets. This training will also help familiarize you with the cadet regulations onboard CGA. You will be notified via e-mail once the training is scheduled.

The matching process of swabs to families will occur during July and August. Please bear with us and remain flexible through this process. There will be a meet and greet scheduled on Campus, typically in late August. This will give families an opportunity to formally meet their cadet if they have not already done so. Details on this will also be via email.

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