The APECS International Directorate is the essential coordinating body without which the organiszation and running of the various APECS activities and programmes would hardly be possible. APECS is grateful for the continued support provided by its Directorate sponsors. Our current locations and sponsors are:
Main Directorate location:
The APECS International Directorate is currently located at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Potsdam Germany and is generously funded by AWI with two positions (a full-time Executive Director and a part-time Administrative Assistant) as well as operational expenses for the APECS office. The current funding agreement is in place until January 2022.
As the APECS Administrative Assistant was on maternity leave from August 2018 until September 2019, the AWI funded a part-time Project Officer for APECS from November 2018 until November 2020 as a temporary replacement.
In addition, a part-time project officer position is funded through the EU Horizon 2020-funded project ARICE (Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium) from October 2018 until December 2021 and coordinates the APECS activities in this project.
Additional Project Office:
The APECS International Directorate has an additional project office at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway, housed at their Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics in Tromsø, Norway with one full-time project officer. This position is funded through the two EU Horizon 2020 projects
- INTERACT II (Interational Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic), and
- APPLICATE (Advanced Prediction in Polar regions and beyond: modelling, observing system design and Linkages associated with a Changing Arctic climaTE)
The duration of the position is until December 2020 and it is responsible for coordinating the UiT and APECS tasks as part of these two projects, and helping with other activities in the APECS International Directorate as needed. UiT also funds some travel support for the APECS Executive Director for managing and supervising the two projects.
Find out more about our APECS International Directorate Sponsors as well as the organizations that have supported our office in the past and further partners and sponsors.
APECS is not a legal entity in its own right but an international network. Finances of the network - other than those of the APECS International Directorate - are handled through the "Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) Deutschland e.V.", a registered non-profit organization based in Germany.
Main Contact Info:
APECS International Directorate Office
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research
Telegrafenberg A45
14473 Potsdam
Germany
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Detailed information on the current staff members and their contact info:
Affiliation and Location: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany
Contact:
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Phone (office): +49-331-2882219
Phone (mobile): +49-151-65830885
Bio: Gerlis has been actively involved in the APECS leadership for several years and assumed the position of APECS Executive Director first at UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Norway) from October 2013 until January 2017, and then at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (Germany) from February 2017. She completed her PhD in Geography at the Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany in 2011 and worked afterwards for two years as a post-doctoral researcher at the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development (ICNGD) at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Her research focused on projects in the Canadian Arctic and Sub-Arctic as well as Northern Scandinavia, addressing questions of comparative economic deveopment, entrepreneurship, tourism, resource development and Northern engagement and participation in innovation and the knowledge economy.
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On the MOSAiC Expedition until September 2020.
Affiliation and Location: Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Helmholtz-Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany
Contact:
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Phone: +49 331-2882213
Fax: +49 331-2882215
Bio: Since November 2018 Lisa is project officer in the APECS International Directorate.
Her field of study is marine geoscience. She graduated from the University of Bremen with a bachelor’s degree in marine geology and micropaleontology. She went on to the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, to gain her master’s degree in marine geology. Her thesis was part of a collaboration with the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), sending her on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean. She studied the so called “Brown Layers”, investigated the age model and paleoenvironmental significance, and reconstructed the climate history from Mid-Pleistocene to Holocene at the core location in the Chukchi Sea. During a stay at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), she learned about the changing infrastructural challenges in the Arctic Regions.
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Affiliation and Location: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany
Contact:
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Bio: Josefine has been working in the permafrost regions of the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic since 8 years and during that time her engagement in young researchers’ networks and science communication has continuously increased. She was part of the APECS Executive Committee 2016/2017, co-founded APECS Germany in 2016 and is currently its Chair. Her previous involvement included active leadership in the international and national executive bodies of the Permafrost Young Researchers Network, an IASC Fellowship 2015 in the Terrestrial Working Group and the position as Young National Correspondent for Germany in the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P).
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Affiliation and Location: UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
Contact:
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Bio: Andrea grew up near Berlin, Germany, with the limestone quarry in her backyard where the Swedish glaciologist Otto Torell solved a mystery in Quaternary geology by finding proof for continental-scale glaciations.
Andrea pursued her undergraduate education in Geography and Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin and specialised in Quaternary Environment and Climate Development in a masters program at Stockholm University, Sweden, and the University Centre in Svalbard (Norway). She worked in close collaboration with the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Potsdam, Germany, during both her BSc and MSc thesis research where she developed a background in interpreting biological indicators that are preserved in frozen ground, and joined two AWI expeditions to north-east Siberia to study seasonal Arctic freshwater ecology.
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Affiliation and Location: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany
Contact:
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Phone (office): +49-331-2882214
Fax: +49-331-2882215
Bio: Heike Midleja is an experienced office manager and has a long history of working with the international Arctic science community.
As the former administrative assistant for the International Arctic Science Committee (2009-2016), she has cooperated with APECS on several occasions to promote and enhance opportunities for early career development.
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Affiliation and Location: UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
Bio: Fiona grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where she completed her undergraduate education in Oceanography and Zoology. In 2007 she started a joint PhD between the University of Cape Town and the Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse-III focused on the regional climatic effects of aerosols, which she completed in 2011. Thereafter she shifted focus (and countries!), moving to Zurich, Switzerland, to work for the World Climate Research Programme’s Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate (SPARC) project. There, she spent half her time doing research focused on atmospheric chemistry and the other half of her time doing work for the SPARC project office. She has extensive experience with science communication, organising scientific workshops and meetings, and coordinating international scientific research.
Fiona first joined the APECS community in 2016, inspired by a visit to the high-altitude Swiss research station at the Jungfraujoch organised by APECS Switzerland. She also has been very involved with the YESS (Young Earth System Scientists) community and hopes to provide a nice link between the two active networks.
As a participant in the recent Antarctic Circumpolar expedition, Fiona fulfilled part of a dream of going to the Antarctic (although she’s yet to make it on to the continent itself!).
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hosted by and affiliated with Murmansk Arctic State University (Russia)
APECS has become a part of my work in 2016. I consider that the joint collaboration with the APECS is an amazing experience of joint work to shape the future of Polar early career scientists.
I am currently a Master degree candidate of Joint Master Degree program in Borderology, at the jointly both Universities: Murmansk Arctic State University (MASU), Russia and Nord University, Norway. My thesis focuses on the study of a ‘border’ of understanding within Norwegian - Russian dialogue through the communication of both cultures with a help of one ‘tool’ as a smile. I hope with a help of this research It would be studied a ‘bridge’ over cultural borders of representatives of the Northern countries in the Arctic zone.
Also currently I am a Ph.D. candidate at MASU with the Russian language department and the linguistics, culture, intercultural communication focus area. My research focuses on the study of the cultural aspects of the modern russian language. This thesis is support of the research of Master dissertation that was completed in 2013 when I also earned Master in Pedagogy in MASU. I grew up in Kazakhstan, graduated the school there, and earned Bachelor in Pedagogy in 2009. In 2011 I moved to Murmansk for getting Masters and developing my scientific career. Now I am working at MASU with the extended education department. Also I have a joint work with my colleagues from the international department and participation in the international programs and courses.
For me living and working in the Arctic zone is very interesting, because it is good to study and understand the features of living in the Arctic region.
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Pascaline joined the APECS Office as part-time Project Officer from June until December 2015. She completed her PhD in physical Oceanography at the University Pierre and Marie Curie in France in 2012. As part of her research project, she went several times to the Arctic to study the evolution of the main features of the ocean, in the context of a drastic sea-ice reduction. In 2012-2013, she participated to an international expedition in western Greenland and overwintered on a sailing boat to study the interactions between the ocean and glaciers.
Within this frame, with the help of french and greenlandic teachers, she set up an educational program for Science and Culture, "Angalasut" ("expedition" in Greenlandic) in order to strengthen interactions between scientists and people. For this purpose, she spent several months in the small greenlandic village of Ikerasak to work with the youth on scientific and cultural projects, and exchanged with the hunter-fishermen on their traditional knowledge about the environmental changes.
Back in France in 2013, together with Anne-Mathilde Thierry, she created the french national committee of APECS, APECS-FRANCE now involving more than 50 young french polar scientists in activities of promotion of young polar researchers and polar knowledge dissemination. Deeply motivated by communication of sciences, she went back to university to pursue a master's degree in scientific and technical communication at the Stendhal University in France.
Since 2014, she is self-employed in science communication, specializing on the topics of polar sciences and promotion of traditional knowledge. Still deeply involved in APECS-France activities, she now joins the APECS Directorate as a project officer.
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Karolina Paquin joined the APECS Office as part-time Project Officer from November 2014 until April 2015 and was employed to help with the coordination of the APECS Nordic "Bridging Early Career Researchers and Indigenous Peoples In Nordic Countries" Project generously funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. She completed her Master of Science at the University of Tromsø, working on the long term repercussions of intensified goose grazing and climate change on Svalbard plants. She aspires to build a career as a leading scientist and international representative of the Polar Sciences. The passion for the Poles took flight during a year studying the science, politics and people of the Arctic at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. Her alternative interests are diverse to say the least, and include learning everything from cooking to music. Her passion for the outdoors makes it nearly impossible to refuse any hike or ski trip.
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Alexey Pavlov is currently a sea ice and oceanography postdoc at the Oceans and Sea Ice group at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, Norway. Alexey is a dedicated researcher interested in the Arctic system, coupling between physical and biogeochemical processes, and their linkages to marine ecosystems. Alexey has a good experience in science communication and public outreach. In his spare time, he blogs about polar research on Twitter at @mvpgeo.
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Dr. Baeseman began her love of the cold growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, USA and has a B.S. in Water Chemistry from the University of WI - Stevens Point, M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota, a Ph.D. also in Civil Engineering with an environmental emphasis from the University of Colorado, and postdoctoral training in Geosciences from Princeton University. She has spent 4 seasons in Antarctica, 3 in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and 1 on the peninsula. Jenny was very involved in the planning of the International Polar Year (IPY) and through this co-founded and subsequently became the Founding Director of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) which grew to over 3500 members from 76 countries during her leadership. One of her main objectives in developing APECS was to help young researchers combine their interests in interdisciplinary polar science with education and outreach and gain international leadership through professional development activities. In April 2012 she turned over the reigns of the early career group to become the Director of the Climate and the Cryosphere Project (CliC), sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and the International Arctic Science Committee. The CliC Project office is hosted by the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, Norway. She continues research in her spare time through an adjunct position at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. One of Jenny's personal goals is to make sure everyone she meets knows that polar bears don't eat penguins - as they live at different Poles.