Council 2007-2008

The APECS Council was created in September 2007 at a meeting outside of Stockholm, Sweden. The Council is made up of representatives for various national committees as well as research discipline representatives and representatives from our partner organizations. Scroll down to read more about them. It also includes the members of the first APECS Executive Committee 2007-2008: Kriss Rokkan Iversen, Narelle Baker, Hugues Lantuit, Daniel Pringle, José Xavier

• Kristina Bäckstrand - Sweden

  Stockholm University / Swedisch Youth Steering Committee
  I did my master in Physical Geography at Lund University, Sweden during which degree I also spend one year in New Zealand. My master project developed into a PhD and I changed university and I'm not at Stockholm University, still Sweden. I've done a lot of fieldwork in subarctic Sweden, in connection with Abisko Scientific Research Station. I plan to finish my PhD in November 2008. I'm also involved in the Swedish YSC working on establishing a Swedish network for early career polar scientists as well as outreach towards schools.

• Arvid Bring - Sweden

  Stockholm University / Swedish Youth Steering Committee 

• James Cheshire - United Kingdom

  University of Southampton / UK Polar Network

• Jason Davis - United States

  The Ohio State University
  Jason worked at McMurdo Station, Antarctica as a Dining room Attendant through the austral summer of 2000-2001. During his time there he hosted a weekly radio show, produced/ directed Much Ado About Nothing, and fostered an interest in the continent. He now is working on his dissertation and occasionally hangs out at the Byrd Polar Research Center where he does outreach activities. His current research focuses on how the commercially useful results of biological research (bioprospecting) in Antarctica are being governed and the implications for property-territory relations.

• Armelle Decaulne - France

  CNRS / APECS Geosciences Coordinator
  I was born in France and started learning Geography at the University in Paris in 1993, and quickly shifted to physical geography, before affirming a preference for geomorphology. After my master degree, where I studied coastal geomorphology in French Brittany beaches, I decided to pursue my researches on slope processes in polar environments. In 1997 I joined the University of Clermont-Ferrand to start a PhD which led me to Northwestern Iceland. Since then, I have not left Iceland, or, more exactly, I am always back to Iceland. My research interest deals with geodynamics, natural hazard and risk, at present-time but also during the Holocene. Since 2006, I am researcher at CNRS, the largest scientific organisation in France, still working on snow avalanche, debris flow, rock fall, landslide impacts in Iceland.

• Peter Difiore - United States

  Princeton University / APECS Chemical Oceanography Coordinator / APECS Chief Information Officer

• Claudia Halsband-Lenk - United Kingdom

  Plymouth Marine Laboratory / APECS Biological Oceanography Coordinator
  I'm a German zooplankton ecologist and started my studies in this field in 1995 at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. Excited about the complex behaviour of little planktonic creatures called copepods, I continued to study their ecology and conducted a comparative study in the Mediterranean and the North Sea, resulting in a bi-national PhD degree, conferred in 2001 by the Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris VI (France) and the University of Oldenburg (Germany). I have studied the ecology of copepods ever since in a number of postdoctoral projects based at the University of Hamburg (Germany), the University of Washington, Seattle (USA), and the University Centre on Svalbard (Norway). I have lived and worked on Spitsbergen in the high Arctic for two years studying population ecology of arctic plankton. I joined APECS as biology discipline coordinator in early 2007. I am now based at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK, from where I will continue my research in the Arctic.

• Bettina Kaiser - New Zealand

  University of Canterbury / German Youth Steering Committee
  Bettina started her tertiary education in Germany, studying Philosophy, English and American literature and cultural history in Berlin. After the first two years of study, she decided to go to Great Britain and pursue a B.A. degree in Philosophy at Leeds University, which she completed after one year majoring in the Philosophy of Science. Subsequently, she completed her Master's degree at Humboldt University in Berlin over the next two years with a particular focus on nineteenth-century American rhetoric and Philosophy of Science. Whilst working for television in Germany, she decided to develop a doctoral project combining research in nineteenth-century rhetorical culture, argumentation theory and history and philosophy of science. It was then, that she became interested in the history of polar research and nineteenth-century scientific culture. Since 2005, Bettina has undertaken her PhD project at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and is the recipient of the Canterbury doctoral scholarship. Since 2006, Bettina is actively involved in education and outreach for the New Zealand Youth Steering Committee and the German initiative "Polarjugend."

• Arthus Mason - United States

  Arizona State University / APECS Social Sciences Coordinator
  I work on the history, politics and culture of arctic natural gas development, and particularly of Alaska and Western Canada. I received my PhD from UC Berkeley in 2004, and am completing my first book, Arctic Moderns and the Import of Expertise for Cornell University Press which is a study of energy market restructuring and the politics of Alaskan-Western Canadian natural gas pipeline development. I am currently working on energy forecasting and how images of the energy future have impacted energy policy and planning since the early 1970s. In this work, I also focus on the activities of experts, a theme that I am developing in various projects on the politics and culture of consultant forecasting. I have held the positions of lecturer at UC Berkeley's Energy Resources Group and Fulbright Scholar, North American Research Chair at University of Calgary, where I continue to hold a Research Associate position at the Arctic Institute of North America. At Arizona State University I am founder and Director of StudioPolar, Assistant Professor in the School of Justice and Social Inquiry, Co-Chair of the Energy, Society and Policy Initiative, and faculty affiliate with the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. I am also the Social Science Coordinator for the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). My ethnographic experience includes various politically appointed State of Alaska positions including Associate Director of Energy under Alaska governor Frank Murkowski and Energy Coordinator under Alaska governor Tony Knowles. I am also involved in long-term ethnographic research at various urban and village sites in Alaska and Alberta.

• Adrien McCallum - United Kingdom

  Scott Polar Research Institute / UK Polar Network
  I've recently moved to Cambridge from Australia to commence a PhD at the Scott Polar Research Institute. I'm essentially looking to investigate the strength of snow for engineering purposes, and whether we can develop a useful in situ testing method which can give a ready appraisel of the snow's strength. I've come to the Polar sciences late, after spending almost 20 years in numerous roles across the Australian Defense Forces. Throughout that time I've been aiming to ultimately forge a career as a Polar scientist and explorer, but it's just taken me a while to get there. I've led or participated in numerous expeditions to the Himalayas and sub-polar regions over that time, and I'm looking forward to getting out and about to places cold and white throughout the next few years. I'm very excited about the opportunities that we as young Polar scientists have before us, and I look forward to meeting and dealing with many of you as we become the 'new-guard' in this field. For further info check out my SPRI webpage.

• Edward Moss - United Kingdom

  Napier University
  Edward was born on 19th October 1981. With the onset of epilepsy at the age of 11 school life became challenging with constant changes of medication. Leaving school with only average qualifications but a determination to pursue his passion and interest in the environment, he read Human Biology at Oxford Brookes University graduating in 2005. His unique dissertation on lemur recognition is likely to be presented at the 'International Primatological Congress, Edinburgh 2008' and these techniques have been considered for use by Prague Zoo. After this he went on to obtain an MSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation at Napier University, Edinburgh graduating in 2006. His MSc thesis took him to the Swedish mountain tundra where he studied the dietary shifts made by red foxes in a sub-arctic ecosystem during times of low food availability. Since university Edward has worked at a research station in the Canadian Arctic as well as becoming a member of the APECS council during 2007. He also manages to pursue many of his other interests including wildlife photography, music, sport and bioacoustics.

• Dirk Notz - Germany

  Max Planck Institute for Meteorology / APECS / CliC Sea Ice Coordinator
  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.

• Melianie Raymond - New Zealand

  University of Otago / New Zealand Youth Steering Committee / APECS Education and Outreach Committee Co-Chair
  Melianie completed her undergraduate studies in Zoology at the Universities of Otago (New Zealand) and Copenhagen (Denmark), during which she became interested in Polar Biology. She is currently studying towards her PhD, focusing on the adaptations that enable Antarctic nematodes to survive intracellular freezing. Her field work has taken her to Cape Hallett supported by a Kelly Tarlton' s and Antarctica New Zealand scholarship, and to Gondwana Station for two seasons as part of Antarctica New Zealand's event K066. She is the chair of the NZ YSC, and involved in coordinating Education and Outreach activities for APECS.

• Torston Sachs - Germany

  Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences / German Youth Steering Committee
  I grew up near Celle, Germany, and first got infected with a passion for the north on a trip to Churchill, Manitoba, while being an exchange student in Winnipeg. I then studied geoecology in Braunschweig focusing primarily on groundwater hydrology until I moved to Anchorage, Alaska on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2002. Here, I started working on methane and carbon dioxide fluxes from degrading permafrost areas near Fairbanks and received a Master of Science in Environmental Science in 2003. Continuing on my transect through Alaska I moved up to Barrow, AK and spent a year working at the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium doing a bit of everything from science to science support in the field, outreach, coordination, and a lot of networking before starting my PhD at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany. For my PhD I conducted closed chamber flux measurements as well as the first continuous whole-season micrometeorological eddy covariance flux measurements of methane in the Siberian Arctic at the Russian-German Research Station Samoylov Island and studied the processes involved in methane exchange between ecosystems and the atmosphere on two spatial scales. In April 2009 I moved to the German Research Centre for Geosciences to lead the Methan Airborne Mapper (MAMap) project and study methane on a third scale using a high-resolution two-channel grating spectrometer that can be mounted on aircraft and helicopters. I am now leading the Helmholtz Young Investigators Group TEAM (for Trace Gas Exchange in the Earth-Atmosphere System on Multiple Scales) at GFZ that focusses on energy and trace gas fluxes (H2O, CO2, CH4) between terrestrial or marine ecosystems and the atmosphere using stationary systems as well as airborne eddy covariance measurements.

• Kazuyuki Saito - Japan and United States

  Nagoya University / University of Alaska / APECS - CliC Science Representative
  My background is mathematics, statistics, and atmospheric science. Earned master's degree from MIT in climate physics and chemistry, and the Ph. D. from Nagoya University, Japan in atmospheric science. Have been working on land-atmosphere interaction in the cold regions, through data analysis and global cliamte modeling. Current focal topic of my research is permafrost variations under changing climate.

• Rhian Salmon - United Kingdom

  Former International Polar Your International Programme Office
  After completing a PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry, Rhian spent three summers and one winter working in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey. Upon return, she was overwhelmed by the beauty of the continent, convinced by the importance of polar research, and disappointed by the huge gulf between scientific knowledge and public awareness of issues of global concern. She now works as Education and Outreach Coordinator for the International Polar Year 2007-8, an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate earth system science in real-time.

• Mieke Sterken - Belgium

  University of Ghent / Belgium Youth Steering Committee
  After finishing her Msc. degree in Geography, Mieke studied an additional year focusing on marine and lacustrine sciences at Ghent University, Belgium. After this, she enrolled in a PhD program, working on paleoclimate and environmental reconstructions in South America and Antarctica. These reconstructions are based on the analysis of fossil diatoms & pigments in sediment cores from several lakes. Mieke is being supervised by Prof. Wim Vyverman and Dr. Elie Verleyen from the Lab for Protistology and Aquatic Ecology. Dr. Verleyen is now involved in research on the biogeography of diatoms, and as Mieke is a geographer, she is doing the GIS-analyses with respect to this research.

• Liz Thomas - United Kingdom

  British Antarctic Survey / UK Polar Network / APECS Career Development Coordinator
  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.

• Tina Tin - France

  Antarctic Southern Ocean Coalition / APECS Environmental and Social Responsibilities Committee Chair
  Tina conducted her Ph.D. research on the thickness of Antarctic sea ice at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (US) and holds a Masters of Engineering from the University of Cambridge (UK). She participated in two research cruises in the Ross Sea and presented papers at a number of international scientific conferences. Her passion lies in the protection of wilderness areas - in the polar regions and worldwide. When she is not focused on Antarctica, she works with WWF and other environmental organizations to promote climate change science and policy in Europe and elsewhere.

• Alexandre Trinidade Nieuwendam - Portugal

  Centro de Estudos Geograficos / Portuguese Youth Steering Committee
  I'm graduated in Physical Geography at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon and at the moment I'm a Master student in Geography (Specialized in Physical Geography, Resources and Natural Hazard). I'm preparing my masters thesis on "Radiation Balance and Thermal Regime of the Ground in the Hurd Peninsula (Livingston Island, Antarctica)". I work as a researcher in the Center of Geographical Studies in the University of Lisbon. I've participated on two Antarctic campaigns 2006-07 and 2007-08 in Livingston Island, integrated in the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. I'm a member of the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN).

• Jill Zamzow - United States

  University of Alabama
  I am a postdoctoral fellow, funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. My current project is a study of top-down and bottom-up effects on amphipod distributions in Antarctic near-shore waters. I will, in particular, be focusing on fish predation and the chemical and structural characteristics of algae, and how they affect amphipod host-alga choice. I'll be SCUBA diving to collect animals and algae, and performing a series of laboratory experiments in aquaria. I leave for Palmer Station in Feb 2008! My doctoral work investigated the ultraviolet defenses employed by coral reef and temperate tidepool fishes (i.e., "fish slime sunscreen"). I have previously worked on ultraviolet vision and communication in fishes, cleaning symbioses between marine turtles and coral reef fishes, and I also did a stint working for the State of Hawaii coordinating research efforts within the Papahānaumokuākea (Northwest Hawaiian Islands) Marine National Monument.