New Members Join the SOOS SSC
With great pleasure we introduce our newest members to the SOOS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC). Please join us in welcoming Sandy Thomalla, Friederike Weith, and Clara Manno, who bring a wealth of expertise, fresh perspectives, and deep commitment to advancing Southern Ocean research. Their contributions will undoubtedly strengthen our collective efforts.
We also extend our sincere thanks to Delphine Lannuzel, Veronica Tamsitt, and Jilda Caccavo for their dedicated service and impactful leadership within the SSC. Their work has helped shape SOOS’s direction, and we are grateful for the time, energy, and insight they have contributed.
Sandy Thomalla is a Chief Scientist and Research Group Leader of the Southern Ocean Carbon-Climate Observatory (SOCCO) at the CSIR. Her research focuses on understanding phytoplankton dynamics and carbon export in the Southern Ocean through a combination of observational platforms that include satellite ocean colour, in situ bio-optics and autonomous platforms.
Her work translates optical measurements into biogeochemical insights, improving our understanding of seasonal and interannual variability in carbon cycling. This work feeds into modelling efforts and helps to assess the climate sensitivity of the Southern Ocean biological carbon pump.
Friederike Weith is a marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, focusing on benthic ecology and seafloor biodiversity in the Southern Ocean. Her works combines benthic sampling, open biodiversity data and modelling approaches to understand the structure and functioning of Antarctic benthic communities and their respond to environmental variability and long-term change.
She is engaged in international collaborations, including AntarcticaInsync, and contributes to refine standardized seafloor sampling approaches and strengthen links between biological, physical and biogeochemical observation.
Friederike’s vision for contributing to the SOOS Scientific Steering Committee is to strengthen integrated, collaborative, and open biodiversity and benthic observing efforts across the Southern Ocean, ensuring biological data are accessible, comparable and useful for both science and policy.
Clara Manno is a Biological Oceanographer at British Antarctic Survey, BAS (Cambridge, UK), honorary lecturer at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK) and Future Leaders Fellow at the United Kingdom (UK) Research and Innovation. She has previously worked at the National Institute of Oceanography and Geophysics (Italy), at the University of Tromso (Norway) and at the University of Perpignan (France), where she developed a strong expertise on Polar Marine Ecosystem.
Her main research interest is to understand how human-induced environmental changes (i.e. ocean warming, ocean acidification, pollution) affects the marine ecosystem and biogeochemical cycle. To achieve this, she uses a multidisciplinary approach, combining laboratory analysis, in situ observation, field experiments and modelling.
Clara is involved in the Task Force which has developed a Southern Ocean Decade Action Plan and co-chair of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) “Plastic in the Polar Ocean” Expert Group.
