SOOS Welcomes New EXCOM and SSC Members

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SOOS is delighted to announce new Executive Committee (EXCOM) and Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) members. Andrew Meijers was selected as SOOS's new Vice Chair, joining SOOS Co-Chairs Sian Henley and Irene Schloss, as well as Vice Chair Wolfgang Rack. New to the SSC are Jianfang Chen and Keyhong Park, who have been selected from a great pool of nominees to join the SSC. Congratulations!

Dr. Andrew Meijers is a physical oceanographer and the science leader of the Polar Oceans team at the British Antarctic Survey.  Andrew is originally from Tasmania and previously worked at the University of Tasmania and CSIRO before joining BAS in 2012.  He is primarily an observationalist, whose main research interests are large scale Southern Ocean circulation, ice-ocean interactions, and how this impacts global climate.  Prior to joining the SOOS ExCom he sat on the SOOS scientific steering committee for several years, and has held leadership roles in numerous UK and EU large scale Southern Ocean projects. He co-leads the OCEAN:ICE project that aims to understand how the icesheet affects the ocean.

Dr. Jianfang Chen is Deputy Director of the Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, and Director of State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics. He is the leader of an innovation team in key fields selected by the Ministry of Science and Technology. He chaired several key projects funded by National R&D Program and National Natural Science Foundation on hypoxia, ocean acidification, air-sea carbon fluxes and biological pump observation in Chinese coastal waters, open ocean and polar seas. He has published over 200 papers in the international journals. He serves as a member the ICES/PICES International Ocean Carbon Negative Emission (ONCE) working group, and is also the associate editor of Progress in Oceanography.

Dr. Keyhong Park is a Principal Research Scientist at the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), specializing in marine and atmospheric chemistry, with a focus on polar regions. He holds a Ph.D. in Marine and Atmospheric Science from the Stony Brook University. His research primarily addresses the carbon cycle, biogeochemistry, and air-sea interactions, particularly in the Southern and Arctic Oceans.

Dr. Park has led numerous field campaigns, including research cruises and monitoring systems in Antarctica and the Arctic. His expertise in long-term monitoring of CO2 and dissolved inorganic carbon has significantly contributed to understanding the role of polar regions in regulating the global carbon cycle. He has conducted extensive research on air-sea CO2 fluxes and carbon cycling, exploring the key drivers of carbon exchange in the Southern Ocean and how these processes are affected by climate variability. In addition, Dr. Park has contributed to studies on dimethyl sulfide (DMS), focusing on its role in climate regulation through cloud formation and its interaction with aerosols. 

He is also an active member of the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP). His work fosters international collaboration and data sharing, advancing efforts to monitor and protect polar environments.

News article 12/Dec/2024/JB