APECS Council/Research Activities Committee Ex-Officio

Max-Planck Institute, Germany

I am leader of the research group "Sea ice in the Earth System" at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. We are working on the development of a next-generation sea-ice model for climate studies by developing new parameterizations from laboratory and field experiments and through theoretical studies.

Before coming to Max-Planck, I studied Meteorology and spent one year on Svalbard in the high Arctic during that time. There, I fell in love with this amazing landscape and have been back to the Arctic every year since that time for field work. I have been on a number of expeditions both in the North and in Antarctica and just got fascinated by the work on sea ice more and more.

I did my PhD in England, trying to figure out how salt gets out of sea ice. In 2007, together with Karolina Widell from the University of Bergen, I was the main initiator and organizer of the IPY International Sea-Ice Summer School that was held on Svalbard for two weeks in July, with more than 90 participants from 16 countries.