Having spent the last 10 years conducting research across mountainous and polar regions, Dr. Alia Khan has become one of the world's leading scientists and is dedicated to understanding the impact of our changing climate on glacial ice and snow. A key area of interest is developing our understanding of light-absorbing particles like snow algae that can significantly impact snow and ice's albedo (whiteness) and its ability to reflect sunlight. Her scientific career has taken her across the world, from collecting snow samples in the Chilean Andes to the Alps of New Zealand and the National Snow and Ice Data Center based at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA. Since 2011, when she published her first scientific article in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, Dr. Khan has gone on to publish over 25 additional articles focused on environmental chemistry in the cryosphere—the frozen water domain.

In 2021, Dr. Alia Khan joined an all-female research team called the Climate Sentinels. All six scientists had previously spent time at University Centre in Svalbard, and together they planned to ski over 280 miles across this frozen archipelago to investigate Arctic snow and glaciers and collect samples in the cleanest way possible. Due to family reasons, Dr. Khan was unable to join the full expedition; however, the samples collected helped to increase understanding of the impact of black carbon, which is a type of snow algae and a major contributor to climate change and is caused by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. Its dark color makes it absorb sunlight and increases the melting of snow and ice, thus warming the climate.

Recently, Dr. Khan has been based out of the Department of Environmental Science at Western Washington University as an associate professor. She continues to study and build our understanding of the cryosphere, in particular black carbon and snow algae.

As part of our scientific partnership and collaboration program, in February 2022 Dr. Alia Khan joined the crew of MS Roald Amundsen on its summer sailings down to Antarctica. Working in collaboration with the Expedition Team on board and the team on MS Fram, Dr. Khan was able to collect around 20 snow samples at Brown Station and Petermann Island to look for snow algae (microalgae that live on snow and ice). The snow samples were melted and filtered before being transported back to Western Washington University.

The study focused on the algal pigments within the samples, with a secondary study analyzing the dissolved organic carbon found within each sample. Throughout her time on the ship, guests were kept up to date with the research project, and initial findings were left on board for the remaining 2022–2023 Antarctic season. We have continued to work with Dr. Khan and increased our collaborative sampling efforts across all three of our expedition ships traveling to Antarctica in the 2022–2023 season.