New director at the Nansen Center
Director Dr. Sebastian H. Mernild.Dr Sebastian H. Mernild (43) started to day as the Managing director (CEO) of the Nansen Center. Dr. Mernild is a full professor in Climate Change and Glaciology. He defended his PhD and doctor scientiarum degrees in glaciology at University of Copenhagen. He has during resent years held positions as senior scientist and research leader in USA and Chile. In 2016 he was appointed full professor at University College in Sogndal. The Board has appointed Dr. Mernild after a thorough open call procedure.
Dr. Mernilds research expertise covers local, regional, and global modelling for climate studies of the cryosphere. He has been using a wide variety of atmospheric and terrestrial models combined with observations focusing on understanding and simulating climate change interactions related to snow, glacier ice mass-balance and freshwater runoff including water balance research. His research covers the Greenland Ice Sheet and mountain glaciers in Arctic, Antarctic, Patagonia, and the Andes, where he has done extensive fieldwork.
After his PhD dissertation (in 2006) he has worked for more than six years in the US. He started as a Post doc at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and continued as senior research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. From 2013 to 2016 he was research leader at Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECs) in Valdivia, Chile.
Dr. Mernild was awarded his Ph.D. degree in climate change, glaciology, and hydrology at University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006. In June 2016 he was awarded the doctor scientiarum degree from University of Copenhagen based on his habilitation thesis Water balance from mountain glacier scale to ice sheet scale - with focus on Mittivakkat Gletscher, Southeast Greenland, and the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Dr. Mernild will also continue as Professor II (20%) in climate research at Sogn and Fjordane University College in Sogndal, where he will lead a student course in the climate change and glaciology and supervise master students.
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