Julian Dowdeswell
Scott Polar Research InstituteJulian Dowdeswell has been Professor of Physical Geography and Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge since 2002. He is also Brian Buckley Fellow in Polar Science at Jesus College, Cambridge. Julian graduated from the University of Cambridge with first class honours and studied for a Masters Degree at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in the University of Colorado before returning to Cambridge for his Ph.D. He has also taught in Aberystwyth and Bristol universities, also establishing the Centre for Glaciology in Aberystwyth and the Bristol Glaciology Centre’. He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree by the University of Cambridge in 2016. Julian has research interests in glaciology and glacial geology, studying the form and flow of glaciers and ice caps and their response to climate change, and the links between past ice sheets and the marine-geological record, using a variety of satellite, airborne and shipborne geophysical instruments. He has worked in many parts of the Antarctic and Arctic, and in mountain areas of the world, in a series of field research projects over almost 40 years. He has written over 350 scientific papers and eleven books, including several for general audiences. He has also lectured to wider audiences, from school children to business leaders and parliamentarians, on climate-change issues. Julian has also represented the UK on a number of international committees concerned with science strategy and policy in the polar regions. These include terms as UK National Delegate to both the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and as Chair of the UK National Antarctic Research Committee. Julian has been awarded the Polar Medal by Her Majesty the Queen and has also received the Founder’s Gold Medal from the Royal Geographical Society. In 2011 he was awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal by the European Geosciences Union. He received the IASC Medal of the International Arctic Science Committee in 2014 and the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2018. He was recently elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and is an Honorary Fellow of Aberystwyth University.
