Keynote Speaker

Helen Cleugh

Dr Helen Cleugh is an atmospheric scientist with over 30 years’ experience combining research discovery, delivery and leadership. She completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and then Lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney in 1987 before taking up a Research Scientist position with CSIRO in 1994. Dr Cleugh was a senior leader of CSIRO’s climate and atmospheric research and collaborations for much of the last decade, before retiring from CSIRO in late 2020.

In recognition of her leadership and research, Dr Cleugh was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) in 2019 and a Fellow of the Australian Meteorological Society (AMOS) in 2020. She has been a member of the World Climate Research Programme’s Joint Scientific Committee since 2015 and is currently the Vice Chair.

Her research explores the interactions between the land and atmosphere, how this influences local climates, carbon uptake and soil water availability, and what this means for carbon and water resource management, environmental outcomes, and climate. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book chapters and her research has provided data, information and knowledge for resource managers, urban planners, and decision and policymakers.

Lyn Carter

Lyn’s research has followed a circular path with her current research interests drawing on her earlier research on how oral traditions verify place on the landscape. “I have now gone full circle and concentrate on place naming and landscape and identity – this led to me working with Sami researchers in arctic Norway where awareness of landscape and place naming shapes their existence. My research focus for the past 14 years has been on landscape and identity and in particular how place names can act as environmental indicators for landscape changes over time – more recently in the context of climate change. Again this is a key area working with Associate Professor Kaisa Helander in Gouvdageaidnu, the Sami capital in northern Norway.”

In 2018, Lyn published Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change: Aotearoa/New Zealand, published as part of Palgrave’s Studies in Disaster Anthropology Series. Click here to access the e-book. This was a sister volume to former Te Tumu academic, Jenny Bryant-Tokalau’s Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change: Pacific Island Countries. Lyn says, “Publishing my book on climate change was an achievement – after my stroke I had three key goals and finishing that book was one of them. The others were seeing more of my mokos, and getting back on my motorbike.”

Florence Rabier

Dr Rabier has been Director-General of ECMWF since January 2016, after two years leading the Centre’s Forecast Department. Her career so far has taken her back and forth between Météo-France and ECMWF. Dr Rabier is an internationally recognised expert in Numerical Weather Prediction, whose leadership has greatly contributed to delivering major operational changes at both ECMWF and Météo-France.

She is especially well known within the meteorological community for her key role in implementing an innovative data assimilation method (4D-Var) in 1997, which was a first worldwide and contributed to an optimal use of satellite observations in weather forecasting. She also led an international experiment involving a major field campaign over Antarctica, in the context of the International Polar Year and the WMO THORPEX programme.

She has been awarded the title of “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur”, one of the highest decorations awarded by the French honours system, and the Great Prize of the Air and Space Academy for the IASI project (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer) and its atmospheric and weather applications.

Invited Speakers

Julie Arblaster

Professor Julie Arblaster is a climate scientist in the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research has highlighted the impact of anthropogenic and natural forcings on the Southern Hemisphere (SH) atmospheric circulation and is focused on an improved understanding of mechanisms of past and future SH climate variability and change. She is a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and Special Research Initiative in Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future. She is a member of the World Climate Research Programme's Climate Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP) panel as well as a member of the 2022 Scientific Steering Committee of the WMO/UNEP Scientific Assessment for Ozone Depletion.

René Garreaud

René Garreaud obtained his PhD in Meteorology from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2000) and previously graduated from Civil Engineering in the Universidad de Chile (1993). Currently, he is a full professor at the Department of Geophysics, Universidad de Chile (DGF-UCh) and deputy director of the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), both at Santiago, Chile. He was chair of the DGF-UCh (2008-2009), president of the Chilean Science Advisory Council (2013). In 2013 he was invited as a Research Fellow at Yale University, USA. In 2019 he was elected as a member of the Chilean Academy of Science. The scientific work of Dr. Garreaud focused on climate dynamics and synoptic meteorology in South America. This work is reflected in more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, leadership of 12 national and international research projects and mentoring of a 25 postdocs and graduate students. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at the Universidad de Chile on a regular basis.

Pat Langhorne

Pat Langhorne has been fascinated by the polar regions since her teenage years. After graduating from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), she completed a PhD on sea ice at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, England. In 1985 she was invited to take part in an Antarctic experiment which brought her to New Zealand for the first time. Since 1988 she has lived and worked in Dunedin, teaching physics at the University of Otago. Although recently retired, she continues to be interested in coastal sea ice and how this is influenced by the proximity of ice shelves. She has been privileged to take part in about twenty-five research visits to Antarctica, mostly to the New Zealand sector. This work, with national and international colleagues and graduate students, has received an Ice Research and Engineering Award of the International Association of Hydro-Environment Research and Engineering (IAHR) (2016) and a New Zealand Antarctic Medal (2019). Career highlights include a role in two over-winter sea ice experiments (2003 & 2009).

James Renwick

James is a climate researcher who studies Southern Hemisphere climate variability, and the impacts of climate change on the Pacific, New Zealand and the Antarctic. He has been a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the past three Assessment Reports. James was awarded the Prime Minister’s 2018 prize for Science Communication, and was appointed to the New Zealand Climate Change Commission in 2019.

Jennifer Salmond

Jennifer is a Professor of Geography in the School of Environment, University of Auckland. Her research focus extends from studying the meteorological controls on urban air pollution and urban climate risk to quantifying human exposure to air pollution. She collaborates with experts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and her work encompasses the development of novel instrumentation, field measurement and modelling approaches. Favouring a critical physical geography perspective, Jennifer encourages a reflective approach to research, with an emphasis on identifying and acknowledging the implicit and explicit assumptions which underpin theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches and the actualization of knowledge.

Jennifer has published more than 85 papers in international journals and has numerous other publications and presentations. In both her capacity as principal and co- investigator she has been awarded over $15 million in external research funding. Her expertise has been recognised by invitations to serve on, or act as an advisor to, local, national and international committees which seek to research and manage air quality issues both within New Zealand and abroad. She has served as an elected member, secretary and an advisor to the Board of the International Association for Urban Climate and Vice President (Auckland) for the New Zealand Meteorological Society. She is currently Co-Chair of Healthy-Polis, an international consortium on urban environmental health and sustainability and a member of the IGU International Commission on Climatology.

Jamie Schulmeister

Jamie Shulmeister is Professor and Head of School at the University in Canterbury in New Zealand and has previously worked at the University of Queensland, the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington. He is paleoclimatologist and Quaternary scientist who works on a mixture of biological (pollen, beatles), biogeochemical (GDGT) and geological/geomorphological records to reconstruct climate. He works on monsoonal records from Australia and SE Asia/China, and the southern hemisphere westerlies from NZ and Australia.

He has also investigated long-term changes in ENSO, the IPO and abrupt climate events like the Younger Dryas. He has co-run numerous international paleoclimate projects for both INQUA and PAGES, most recently co-leading the Southern Hemisphere Last Glacial Maximum Project (SHeMax) of the INQUA Paleoclimate Commission. He is also interested in landscape reconstruction and works with archaeologists in this field. His current research centres around the reconstruction of glacial records from South Island, NZ and coastal/aeolian records SE Queensland to identify major climatic changes as well as reconstructing landscapes of early agriculture in NZ.

Susan Solomon

Susan Solomon is the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to coming to MIT in 2012, she was a scientist at NOAA in Boulder, Colorado and an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado from 1982-2011. She is well known for her pioneering work in atmospheric chemistry, including explaining the cause of the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer. She is also the author of several influential scientific papers in climate science, including the understanding of how the ozone hole influences southern hemisphere climate.

She received the US National Medal of Science, our nation’s highest scientific award, in 1999. She has also received the Grande Medaille of the French Academy of Sciences, the Blue Planet Prize in Japan, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Volvo Environment Prize. She is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society in the UK. Time magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008. Two geographic features in Antarctica have been named after her, Solomon Saddle and Solomon Glacier.

Carolina Vera

Carolina Vera is Full Professor at the School of Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and Principal Researcher of Argentina National Council of Sciences (CONICET). She has been the Director of the Argentinean-French Institute for Climate Studies and its impacts, jointly sponsored by UBA, CONICET, of Argentina and "Centre national de la recherche scientifique" (CNRS), Deputy Dean of the School of Sciences of UBA and Director of the Center for Atmosphere and Ocean Research (CIMA)/ UBA- CONICET. Since December 2019 she is Chief staff of the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina.

Dr. Vera has long research experience on understanding, simulating and predicting climate variability and change and its impact on socioeconomic sectors, like agriculture. She coordinated many recognized international research projects and programs related with climate variability and change. She has authored several peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters. She was awarded by the American Meteorological Society with the “Cleveland Abbe” Award, "For unselfish devotion to advancing and communicating climate science to decision makers and stakeholders in South America and across the world".

She is currently Vice-Chair of WG1Bureau of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change). She has served in International Panels like the Scientific Advisory Panel of the World Meteorological Organization, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change (IAI), Future Earth Science Committee, World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Joint Scientific Committee, Independent Science Panel of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Scientific Committee of the Transformation to Sustainability Program of International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the Committee of the American Meteorological Society for Meteorology and Oceanography of the Southern Hemisphere.