Chair

Prof. Bettine van Vuuren
Senior Director: Strategic Initiatives and Administration/University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Bettine van Vuuren is a molecular ecologist – interested in understanding the drivers of spatial and temporal genetic patterns. She has been worked in the sub-Antarctic region for close on 20 years, with most of her work focusing on Marion Island macro-invertebrates and plants. She is the Senior Director: Strategic Initiatives and Administration, and a Professor of Zoology, at the University of Johannesburg, and one of the Vice Chairs for Ant-ICON.

Speakers

Dr. Jilda Caccavo (Ant-ICON)
Institute Pierre-Simon Laplace, France

Jilda is a marine biologist at the Institute Pierre-Simon Laplace in France, where her research integrates genomics into the modeling of climate change impacts on Southern Ocean species. She received her PhD in 2018 in Italy using multidisciplinary methods to understand population dynamics in Antarctic fish, and recently completed her first postdoctoral project in Germany, where she expanded on the approaches developed during her PhD in the context of exploited species and marine spatial planning. She has been part of the Italian and then the German delegations to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) since 2018, and has held a CCAMLR Scientific Scholarship since 2019. She is currently a member of the leadership team on the Ant-ICON Steering Committee.

A/Prof. Daniela Liggett (Ant-ICON)
University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Daniela Liggett is a social scientist with a background in environmental management, Antarctic politics and tourism research.  Her research interests include the governance of human activity in polar environments and the complexities of Antarctic values.  She is currently involved in collaborative research on the topics of Antarctic tourism, the use and provision of polar environmental forecasts, Antarctic science-policy interactions, and the impact of COVID-19 on the Antarctic community.  Daniela has contributed to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research’s (SCAR) First Antarctic and Southern Ocean Horizon Scan, has been a Chief Officer of SCAR’s Standing Committee on the Humanities and Social Sciences (until August 2022), and a member of both SCAR’s Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System and its Capacity Building, Education and Training Committee.  She has been one of the co-chairs of the Societal and Economic Research and Applications (SERA) task team of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Polar Prediction Project (PPP) and also served on the PPP Steering Group.  She serves on the Steering Committee of the SCAR Scientific Research Programme Ant-ICON (Integrated Science to Inform Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation) and will assume the role of one of this programme’s co-Chief Officers in August 2022.

Dr. Florence Colleoni (INSTANT)
Italian National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS), Italy

Florence Colleoni is a glaciologist and a paleoclimatologist at the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS), Trieste – Italy since 2018. She got her Ph.D. about climate modeling of past glaciations at the Institute of Glaciology and Environment in Grenoble (France) in 2009. Her research focuses on the evolution of ice sheets from deep past to present and future using numerical modeling. She uses a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate the interactions between all components of the Earth’s system in the polar area. She is currently SCAR co-chief officer of the Science Research Programme INSTANT “Instabilities and Thresholds in Antarctica”, whose aim is to improve sea level projections by bridging paleo, present and future Antarctic sciences.

Prof. Tim Naish (INSTANT)
Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Tim Naish is a Professor in Earth Sciences at the Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, where he was Director from 2008-2017. His research focuses on past, present and future climate change with specific emphasis on how the Antarctic ice sheets respond to climate change and influence global sea-level. He is co-chief of SCARs INSTANT Programme. He is the leader of the NZ Antarctic Science Platform’s “Ice, Ocean and Atmosphere” Programme, and co-leads the “NZ SeaRise” Programme improving location-specific projections of sea-level rise.  Tim and his “Melting Ice & Rising Seas Team” were awarded the 2019 NZ Prime Minister’s Science Prize. He was awarded the Tinker Muse Prize for Antarctic Science and Policy in 2014 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Dr. Tom Bracegirdle (AntClimNow)
British Antarctic Survey, UK

Dr Tom Bracegirdle leads the Polar Climate and Prediction group at the British Antarctic Survey. Most of his current research focusses on improving process understanding of polar climate variability and change and linkages between polar and extra-polar regions. Over the last decade he has held a number of positions in SCAR groups; most notably as Chief Officer of the now-completed SRP AntClimNow and as a member of SC-ATS. 

Convenors

Dr. Thamban Meloth
National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, India
Thamban is the Group Director of Polar Sciences at the under the NCPOR. His research focusses on Antarctic climate reconstruction using ice cores and the influence of climatic modes and oscillations on Antarctic climate. He was instrumental in setting up India’s first Ice Core Laboratory at Goa and initiating ice core studies in India. He is member of the Executive Council Panel on Polar and High Mountain Observations Research and Services (EC-PHORS) of WMO, Scientific Steering Group member of Cryosphere and Climate (CliC) Project of WCRP and International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS).

Expert Panel

Dr. Kyle Clem
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Kyle is a Lecturer in Climate Science at Victoria University of Wellington. His research examines how the tropics drive climate variability, change, and extreme events in Antarctica spanning individual case studies to interannual and multi-decadal time scales. He is especially interested in how planetary “Rossby” waves triggered by tropical deep convection alter the regional atmospheric circulation around Antarctica across different seasons and time scales, and their role in driving regional weather and climate variability in Antarctica.

Dr. Liz Thomas
British Antarctic Survey, UK

Liz is the head of the ice core research group at the British Antarctic survey. She uses ice cores to reconstruct past climate over decadal to millennial time scales, with a focus on changes in sea ice and surface mass balance. Her research has explored the teleconnection between the tropical Pacific and West Antarctica, including comparing ice cores and coral records spanning recent centuries.

Dr. Krishnan Raghavan
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), India

Krishnan is the Director of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune. He specializes in climate modeling studies on scientific issues relating to climate change, Asian monsoon and water cycle. Under his leadership, the Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR) at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) developed the first Earth System Model (ESM) from India that contributed to the CMIP6 and IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. He was a coordinating lead author in the IPCC AR6 WG1 report (Chapter-8: Water Cycle Changes) and a drafting author in the Summary for Policymakers. He is a Member of the Joint Scientific Committee (JSC), World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), WMO. He and his team from CCCR-IITM published the First National Climate Change Assessment Report of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India in 2020.

Dr. Xichen Li
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

Xichen is a Research Scientist at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chines Academy of Sciences. His research interests focus on climate and environmental evolution and their impact on economics and society. Through statistical analysis of observations, numerical simulations, and machine learning methods, he investigates the interactions between different regional climate systems, their physical mechanisms, their impacts on the predictability and future projection of the Earth climate system, and their interactions with human society.

Natasha Gardiner
University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Natasha is a PhD Candidate at Gateway Antarctica, School of Earth and Environment, University of Canterbury (NZ). Her research investigates the Antarctic science-policy interface at the national and international levels. Natasha also works as an Environmental Advisor on the Policy, Environment and Safety team for New Zealand’s National Antarctic Programme, Antarctica New Zealand. She is a co-convenor of Ant-ICON’s Synthesis theme.

Dr. Susie Grant
British Antarctic Survey, UK

Susie is a marine biogeographer at the British Antarctic Survey, with an interest in developing scientific advice for policymakers in the polar regions, particularly in relation to the conservation and management of marine ecosystems. She was a scientific advisor as part of the UK delegation to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) since 2005, also serving as Vice-Chair of the CCAMLR Scientific Committee in 2015. Susie is currently Chief Officer of the SCAR Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System (SC-ATS).

Dr. Hyoung Chul Shin
Korea Polar Research Institute, Republic of Korea

Hyoung Chul, a biological oceanographer by training, has broad interests in polar science and policy connections, including the management of marine living resources. He serves as the vice president of Korea Polar Research Institute, ex officio the chief scientist of the organisation. He has worked in various capacities in relation to Antarctic Treaty, CCAMLR, COMNAP and SCAR, besides the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement.

Dr. Neil Gilbert
Antarctica New Zealand

Neil has worked on Polar issues in various roles for over 30 years.  On behalf of the UK and, more recently, New Zealand he has attended numerous meetings of the Antarctic Treaty and its Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) of which Neil was the Chair between 2007 and 2010.  Neil now runs his own Antarctic consultancy company based in Christchurch, New Zealand through which he works on a range of Antarctic projects and is a Member of Antarctica New Zealand’s Board of Directors.  Neil is co-convenor of Ant-ICON’s Synthesis theme.

A/Prof. Cassandra Brooks
University of Colorado, Boulder

Cassandra Brooks is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. An interdisciplinary scholar, she works across marine science, environmental policy, and science communication largely focused on Antarctic conservation. This includes research on life history and connectivity of Antarctic toothfish and silverfish. Cassandra is also an accomplished science communicator, and was a core member of The Last Ocean, a grand-scale media project focused on protecting the Ross Sea, Antarctica. To pursue expertise in the policy realm, Cassandra completed a PhD at Stanford University, studying Antarctic marine protection. She has served as science faculty for the Homeward Bound Project, a ground-breaking women’s leadership initiative in Antarctica. Since 2012, Cassandra has participated in meetings of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), and currently does so with the SCAR delegation as the Deputy Chief Officer of SCAR’s Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System. 

Panellists

Dr. Mercedes Santos
Instituto Antártico Argentino, Argentinia

Dr Mercedes Santos is a Research Scientist  with a background in avian biology, Antarctic policy and marine spatial planning, Her research interests focus on penguin population dynamics and the conservation of the Southern Ocean, particularly on marine spatial planning and socio-ecological systems. She is currently involved in marine protected areas discussions, Antarctic science policy interactions. She has been the alternative representative in the Scientific Committee of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Resources (CCAMLR) and she is currently the co-chief  on the Steering Committee of the SCAR Scientific Research Programme Ant-ICON (Integrated Science to Inform Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation).

Dr. Tom Bracegirdle
British Antarctic Survey, UK

Dr Tom Bracegirdle leads the Polar Climate and Prediction group at the British Antarctic Survey. Most of his current research focusses on improving process understanding of polar climate variability and change and linkages between polar and extra-polar regions. Over the last decade he has held a number of positions in SCAR groups; most notably as Chief Officer of the now-completed SRP AntClim21 and as a member of SC-ATS.

Dr. Keith Reid
Antarctic Environments Portal Editor & Consultant

Keith is a marine scientist with a passion for conservation and education. He was a marine ecologist with British Antarctic Survey from 1991 to 2007  working on the foraging ecology of seabirds and marine mammals and the population dynamics of Antarctic krill.  From 2008 to 2021 Keith  was the Science Manager at the Secretariat of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Keith has participated in the Committee for Environmental Protection and Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings from 2006 to 2016  and CCAMLR meetings  since 1998, including in the Working Groups on ecosystem monitoring and  incidental mortality associated with fishing. Keith has extensive experience of the application of science and policy in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean and has an operational understanding of the roles and responsibilities within multi-lateral and inter-governmental processes. He is an author of over 80 peer-reviewed publications and 2 books and holds associate research positions at Shanghai Ocean University and University of Tasmania.

Birgit Njåstad
Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway

Birgit Njåstad leads the Antarctic Programme at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, Norway. Njåstad has had various positions at the Institute over two decades, and throughout this period has worked extensively and broadly with Antarctic management, policy and research related issues. She has participated and/or represented Norway in the Committee for Environmental Protection since 1998. She currently serves as the Chair of this Committee (2018-2023). Njåstad has a Masters in Natural Resource Management from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Dr John Shears FRGS

Dr John Shears is a veteran polar geographer and expedition leader. He has over 30 years of experience of working in both Antarctica and the Arctic, first with the British Antarctic Survey, then the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, and now running his own polar consultancy business Shears Polar Limited. Since 2017, John’s polar expeditions have focussed on the search for the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. A quest called “the impossible search for the greatest shipwreck”. He was the leader of the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019, which failed to find the ship and lost an autonomous underwater vehicle during the search. But returned in 2022 as the leader of the international Endurance22 expedition, and succeeded in making polar history with the dramatic discovery of the Endurance at a depth of over 3000m at the bottom of the Weddell Sea on 5 March 2022.

John is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Chartered Geographer, and has worked closely with the Society on many polar expeditions and educational projects. He was awarded the Polar Medal by Her Majesty the Queen in 2019 in recognition of his “outstanding achievement and service to the United Kingdom in the field of polar research”.