AUGUSTA -- Paul Mayewski has visited remote reaches of the planet, leading expeditions to collect snow samples and ice cores in an effort to reconstruct the planet's climate history.

The research, which has taken Mayewski to the Andes Mountains, Antarctica, the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau and elsewhere, is geared at understanding modern-day climate change.

Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine in Orono, will deliver the keynote address Sunday, Oct. 19, at the University of Maine at Augusta's convocation.

Mayewski's address is the first in a succession of UMA events that tie into the college's chosen theme for the academic year: environmental sustainability.

His speech on Sunday will follow Allyson Hughes Handley's formal installation as UMA's president. A dozen representatives from the city of Augusta, the UMA faculty, student government, state government and elsewhere will participate in installing Handley, who became campus president in March.