Learned Society of Wales Fellowship awarded

Congratulations to Professor Julian Dowdeswell (1977) on being made a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute and Professor of Physical Geography, Professor Dowdeswell is also Brian Buckley Fellow in Polar Science at Jesus College.

Professor Dowdeswell is one of 42 new Fellows of the Society representing sectors across the arts, humanities, sciences and public service.  The Society states; "Election to Fellowship is a public recognition of academic excellence, and keenly competed. Fellows are elected following a rigorous examination of their achievements in their relevant fields.

Sir Emyr Jones Parry, the Society’s President, said: “I am delighted to welcome such a wide range of outstanding individuals to the Fellowship this year. Their election is recognition of excellence and achievement. They and their work are an inspiration to the nation. Fellows are elected on merit, and again the number of female Fellows is growing.”

Working on the ice and from aircraft, Professor Dowdeswell has studied a number of areas of the Arctic, including Svalbard, Russian Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya, Iceland, Greenland and Baffin, Devon and Ellesmere Islands in Arctic Canada.

He has also undertaken many periods of work on icebreaking research vessels in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea, in the fjords and on the continental shelves of Svalbard and Greenland, and in the waters around Antarctica.

In February 2019 he will lead the international Weddell Sea Expedition to study the Larsen C Ice Shelf which will also, if opportunity allows, attempt to pinpoint the seafloor location of Ernest Shackleton's lost ship, Endurance. Hear more about the expedition in an interviews with the BBC.