Chief Investigators
Matt King
UTas
Matt looks at how and why the Earth changes shape across timescales of seconds to decades. His research informs a better understanding of the changing Antarctic Ice Sheet and sea-level rise.
Alan Aitken
UWA
Alan is an expert in applying integrated geoscience methods to increase the understanding of the tectonic processes that control continent architecture.
David Antoine
Curtin U
David’s interests include marine optics, bio-optics, radiative transfer and applications, satellite ocean colour remote sensing including atmospheric corrections, modelling of oceanic primary production from satellite ocean colour, and calibration/validation activities for satellite ocean colour missions.
Linda Armbrecht
UTas
Linda is a marine biologist who specialises in paleo-genomics, in particular, the analysis of ancient DNA from the seafloor (sedaDNA) from around Antarctica.
Sophie Bestley
UTas
Sophie is a quantitative Southern Ocean ecologist. She studies the processes driving productive marine habitats where migratory animals go to feed, linking ecosystems with ocean and ice dynamics in a changing climate.
Luke Bennetts
U Melb
Luke’s research focuses on marginal ice zone dynamics, particularly ocean wave interactions with ice floes, and wave induced ice shelf calving events.
Nathan Bindoff
UTas
Nathan is one of the world’s leading climate scientists. As an expert in physical oceanography, he looks at how and why Earth has changed and what that means for the future.
Julia Blanchard
UTas
Julia’s research covers global change ecology, biodiversity and ecosystems, and food security. She seeks to understand and predict how marine ecosystems respond to human-induced environmental change.
Philip Boyd
UTas
Philip’s research ranges from ecology to biogeochemistry. He co-develops decision support tools for climate change and geoengineering with economists and policy analysts.
Zanna Chase
UTas
Zanna’s research focus is the interaction of chemical cycles and biological activity in the oceans. She looks at how these are affected by climate and the role of the Southern Ocean in long term climate change.
Poul Christoffersen
UTas
Poul’s research focusses on glacier flow, the subglacial interior of Antarctica and the ice sheet’s interaction with the Southern Ocean. His work contributes to a better understanding of sea level rise.
John Church
UNSW
John is the pre-eminent authority on the rate of 20th century sea-level rise. He also pioneered the now standard approach of using observations to detect climate change in the ocean.
Richard Coleman
UTas
Richard investigates the interaction of the Antarctic ice shelves with the ocean, to better understand the factors influencing change in freezing and melting. The data is used to help better prepare for the impacts of climate change.
Rhodri Davies
ANU
Rhodri is a computational and observational geodynamicist, who researches links between the evolution of Earth’s surface and dynamical processes within its deep interior.
Michael Ellwood
ANU
Michael investigates microscopic plankton as well as the sources and distribution of nutrients in the Southern Ocean. The links between nutrients, productivity and CO2 are critical to understanding future climate change.
Matt England
UNSW
Matt’s research seeks to understand large-scale ocean circulation and its influence on regional and global climate—from the tropics to Antarctica—on timescales of seasons to millennia.
Bishakhdatta Gayen
U Melb
Bishakh's experience lies in geophysical fluid dynamics, physical oceanography and computational fluid dynamics. His current research interests are nonlinear internal waves in the ocean, turbulent convection, modelling of Antarctic ice melting and Southern Ocean dynamics.
Ian Goodwin
UNSW
Ian’s research covers climatology, paleoclimatology, polar glaciology, climate change science, coastal and marine geoscience, coastal oceanography, and maritime prehistory.
Jacqui Halpin
UTas
Jacqui focuses on understanding Earth’s tectonic processes and the evolution of the continents. Her research examines the dynamic processes occurring in the Earth's crust.
David Heslop
ANU
David’s research focuses on rock magnetism and its application to environmental problems. He is also working on a number of collaborative projects to develop statistical methods appropriate for palaeomagnetic and rock magnetic analysis.
Nicole Hill
UTas
Nicole’s expertise spans a range of applied marine ecology topics. She focuses on understanding, quantifying and mapping biodiversity to support decision-making in the marine environment, including the Antarctic.
Mark Hindell
UTas
Mark’s focus is on investigating which areas of the Southern Ocean and Antarctic are most in need of preservation though Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
Delphine Lannuzel
UTas
Delphine specialises in sea ice biogeochemistry. Her research on the iron cycle in sea ice is highly regarded across the globe.
Mary-Anne Lea
UTas
Mary-Anne is interested in how the environment and climate change affect the behaviour, distribution and life history of marine and polar vertebrates—particularly, marine predators.
Vanessa Lucieer
UTas
Vanessa develops spatial analysis methods to translate remotely sensed data into information to help better understand marine environments. Her goal is to advance the understanding of marine communities and improve the management of vulnerable environments.
Andrew McMinn
UTas
Andrew investigates the ecophysiology of Antarctic microbial communities using new and evolving technologies in fluorescence. Andrew also pioneered the in-situ use of micro sensors in polar environments.
Laurie Menviel
UNSW
Laurie is interested in the impact of abrupt changes in ocean circulation on the climate and global carbon cycle.
Adele Morrison
ANU
Adele investigates what drives the ocean's large-scale circulation and how changes in the past, present and future impact global climate. Her focus is the Southern Ocean and the melt rate of Antarctic ice shelves.
Max Nikurashin
UTas
Max uses a combination of theory, process-oriented and realistic global numerical simulations, as well as observations to understand fundamental physical processes in the ocean and their impact on the global circulation and climate.
Taryn Noble
UTas
Taryn is an expert in geochemistry. Her palaeographic research seeks to understand the role ocean circulation had in melting the Antarctic ice shelves during Earth’s last deglaciation.
Helen Phillips
UTas
Helen is interested in how the small-scale features of the ocean, such as waves and eddies, affect the large currents. The currents are critical pathways for heat and other properties to spread through the ocean.
Anya Reading
UTas
Anya employs innovative approaches in data science to build on a foundation of experimental field seismology in challenging regions such as Antarctica. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on interactions between the deep Earth and ice sheets.
Kate Selway
UTas
Kate integrates geophysics with geology and geochemistry to understand the impacts on mantle dynamics, minerals systems analysis, and sea level change.
Alex Sen Gupta
UNSW
Alex examines the role of the ocean in the climate system, how the ocean influences regional climate, the influence of ocean change on biological systems and what global climate models tell us about the future of the ocean.
Paul Spence
UTas
Paul specialises in ocean climate modelling. He researches geophysical fluid dynamics, focusing on the ocean’s role in global climate.
Pete Strutton
UTas
Pete examines the interaction of physical and biological processes in the ocean, exploring the consequences for ocean productivity and air-sea CO2 exchange.
Paul Tregoning
ANU
Paul uses space-geodetic observations to study changes in the Earth caused by geophysical processes such as tectonic deformation, tidal deformation, and climate-driven variations in sea level and polar ice caps.
Cat Vreugdenhil
U Melb
Dr Cat Vreugdenhil has research interests of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics and Oceanography. She is interested in Antarctic ice shelf/ocean interactions, ocean convection, and changes in heat and salt transport in the ocean.
Chris Watson
UTas
Chris uses satellite-based sensors to examine the response of sea level to a warming climate.
Duanne White
U Canberra
Duanne is interested in the links between landscape, climate and critters, and how these have changed during the past 2 million years. He also generates records of past ice sheet changes to inform ice sheet model development and projections of future sea level rise.
Jo Whittaker
UTas
Jo studies the processes driving plate tectonics. Her main interest is the movement of Australia away from Antarctica 35 million years ago—and how this influenced paleo ocean circulations.
Chen Zhao
UTas
Chen is a glaciologist and an ice sheet modeller. Her research focuses on exploring the sea level contributions from the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a changing climate and assessing the impact of climate systems on large ice sheets with numerical modelling.
Jan Zika
UNSW
Jan is fascinated by the large-scale physics of the ocean and the role of water in the climate.