President Daniela Haase Liggett

University of Canterbury, NZ

APECS Executive Committee - President

APECS New Zealand

Originally hailing from the eastern part of Germany, Daniela has completed a BSc in Management in Germany, an MSc in Environment and Development at the University of Manchester, and recently a PhD in Antarctic Studies at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. It was during her studies in Manchester that she developed a keen interest in Antarctic environmental issues. Consequently, she decided to focus her energies on analysing the effectiveness of the regulatory regime for Antarctic tourism in the course of her doctoral research. She spent six weeks as a lecturer on an ice-strengthened cruise ship visiting the Antarctic Peninsula and the Falkland Islands last season. 

Aside from her research, Daniela dedicates a lot of her time to education and outreach activities – she is involved in the New Zealand and German Youth Steering Committees and in the New Zealand effort to coordinate Antarctic-related outreach projects. Moreover, she tries to encourage cooperation and transparency within the Polar social sciences through the Social Sciences and Humanities Antarctic Research Exchange (SHARE).

Vice-President Ben Beall

University of Western Ontario, Canada

APECS Executive Committee

APECS Information Officer

Ben Beall is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. Although stranded many, many kilometers from the ocean, he studies marine microbial ecology and biological oceanography. He is interested in the processes that shape and control the growth of planktonic microbial communities.

The dynamic communication of knowledge and experience and the opportunities for collaboration and education are parts of the great promise of APECS. Ben hopes to contribute by facilitating these connections through the website and other media.

Vice-President Francisco Fernandoy

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany

APECS Executive Committee

APECS Chile

Born at 7th March 1980 in Valparaiso, Chile. Attended Elementary and High School in Punta Arenas (Southern Chile). Moved in 1998 to Concepción (Chile) to study geology at the University of Concepción, there graduate in 2005. In 2006 worked for a private mining company near the city of Coyhaique (Chile). At the end of 2006 received a DAAD scholarship to initiate a PhD in Germany at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and the University of Potsdam, began the studies in April 2007 after a six months language course in the city of Leipzig (Germany).

Between 2002 and 2008 participate in five scientific expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula in subjects like palaeontology, geology and glaciology. The first four expeditions were in frame of an INACH (Chilean Antarctic Institute) project with the aim to study the evolution of the Gondwana break-up, based in paleontological and geological evidences. During these expeditions worked in different points of the South Shetland Islands. During January and February 2008 carried out the first expedition of his PhD program in the Antarctic Peninsula nearby the Chilean “O ́Higgins” station, from this location were retrieved shallow ice cores to study the climate variability in the last years to decades.

I find the idea of collaboration between young researchers really interesting. As I saw at the SCAR/IASC meeting, APECS will become in the near future a reference point for all young Polar scientists and I would be really glad to contribute to this organization. I could offer my help to establish a national committee (Chilean) with the aim of get in touch all the Chilean young researchers and hopefully to establish cooperation instances between national and international partners. As well I could offer some help to those trying to work in the field, especially in the north of Antarctic Peninsula, where the Chilean stations are, to contact the right persons and when ever it’s possible to collaborate in field.

Vice-President Matt Strzelecki

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań (Poland) & Durham University (U.K.)

The Association of Polish Geomorphologists

Mateusz Strzelecki was born on 5th June 1984 in Poznań, central Poland. However he spent his childhood in a smaller town Swarzedz surrounded by forests and lakes, what had a huge influence on his attitude towards nature and environment. His parents are both academics, working at Faculty of Theology at Poznan University. After finishing one of the leading Polish high-schools (1st High School in Swarzedz) he moved to Poznan to study geography at Faculty of Geosciences at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Studies at the biggest geographical centre in Central Europe opened him a chance to visit the High Arctic and write his Master thesis about glaciofluvial transport in small, glaciated catchment located on Spitsbergen. During last four years Mateusz was a member of 5 expeditions to Spitsbergen Island. He spent one semester at University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), where he participated in two specialized courses in permafrost and periglacial geomorphology and cold region field investigations. During his Masters’ studies he obtained Socrates/Erasmus scholarship and moved to the United Kingdom to Portsmouth University to study fluvial geomorphology and mountain climatology. He graduated in June 2007 and applied for a PhD position at his former Faculty. When Mateusz started his doctoral research about polar coast geoecosystems on Svalbard and South Shetlands he got an opportunity to move to Department of Geography at Durham University, UK, and continue his thesis under supervision of professor Antony Long. Mateusz specializes in polar geomorphology with a particular consideration of paraglacial landscape evolution in fluvial and littoral geoecosystems. He is also a passionate propagator of multidisciplinary polar science without borders and beliefs in a significant role of cold region scientists in a globalized world. One of the most important events in his young career was a New Generation of Polar Reserachers Symposium in Colorado Springs, May 2008, where together with wonderful polar friends from nearly half of the world, he understood how amazing mission is waiting to be fulfilled. His current efforts to become an ExCom in APECS are a direct result of NGPR Symposium assumptions and one of his leading goals for next decade.

Vice-President Liz Thomas

British Antarctic Survey, U.K.

U.K. Polar Network

Dr Liz Thomas is a climate change scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, investigating the recent warming on the Antarctic Peninsula using evidence obtained from ice cores. She has been fortunate to take part in two field campaigns in the Antarctic; the first as part of an international ice core drilling team that reached bedrock (~1000 m) at Berkner Island (79°S,45°W) in the summer of 2004/05 and the second leading an ice core drilling project in the Antarctic Peninsula (73°S, 70°W) in 2006/07. She has a PhD in Paleoclimatology, investigating past rapid climate change events from Greenland ice cores. She loves all aspects of polar fieldwork and is looking forward to her first trip to the Arctic in July, as chief scientists for a young explorers expedition to Svalbard, with the British Schools Exploration Society.