Introducing new Ross Sea Leadership Team Members

Liv Cornelissen is a PhD candidate based in Wellington New Zealand, looking at the mixing processes and circulation of the Terra Nova Bay polynya in a changing ocean. She studies polynya events and interannual variability, via a long-term mooring time series and ocean modelling. Before starting her PhD, Liv completed the master ‘Climate Physics’ at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and wrote her thesis on studying the driver of marine heat waves around New Zealand using a Lagrangian analysis of heat transport in future climate scenarios in a nested Earth System Model. As a team member of the Ross Sea Working Group Liv wants to focus on growing connections between researchers and research institutes to get as much science done with limited funding by co-hosting the bi-monthly Ross Sea Work Group meeting which has she has been running since November 2023.

Denise Fernandez is a physical oceanographer based at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research (NIWA) in New Zealand. She completed her undergraduate studies at Victoria University of Wellington, majoring in geophysics and mathematics, followed by a Masters in Geophysics and then received a PhD in Physical Oceanography from the University of Auckland in 2017.

Denise is one of the objective leaders for the New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform where she investigates the drivers of ocean heat changes and redistribution from observations and model simulations in the Ross Sea. Her latest interests involve ocean dynamics and biogeochemistry, particularly she is investigating how the oxygen content in the Southern Ocean is changing in parallel with increasing ocean temperatures. Another aspect of her job that she enjoys most is the fieldwork. She has undertaken five scientific voyages in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, primarily on the RV Tangaroa, contributing to the advancement of the Deep Argo program since its inception in 2014. She is actively engaged in science outreach and communication, focusing on coordinating activities, including arranging educational visits to NIWA for school-aged children, supported by the Argo program. Since 2023 she has been the New Zealand Representative for the GO-SHIP committee and currently manages the Ocean Observations group at NIWA.