COMNAP Early-Career Award
COMNAP early-career awardees 2024 Announced
COMNAP is pleased to support two early career Antarctic persons in 2024:
María Cristina Casero Chamorro and Clara Álvarez Hernández
The annual COMNAP Early-Career Award (also know as COMNAP Antarctic Fellowship) is an investment in the professional development of talented early career researchers. The fellowship scheme, established in 2011, enables early‐career persons to work with a project team from another country, opening up new opportunities and often creating partnerships that last for many years and over many Antarctic field seasons. By supporting their professional development with a host institute, the fellowship also strengthens international capacity and cooperation. You can read the media release announcement here.
María Cristina Casero Chamorro
Cristina is a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, and she will be hosted by the Czech Antarctic Research Program.
This award will support Cristina project entitled “Understanding viral abundance and distribution from airborne samples in and around Johan Gregor Mendel Base, northern James Ross Island, Antarctica”.
“I find crucial to investigate the potential exposure of expedition members in an area with limited healthcare resources. I think that the scientific community must prioritize its own safety when conducting fieldwork and assist organisations, such as COMNAP, in continuously improving their biosecurity protocols”
Clara Álvarez Hernández
Clara Álvarez Hernández will join researchers at the British Antarctic Survey, United Kingdom.
Clara project is entitled “Exploring plastic waste removal options to minimize local introduction of micro-plastics in the Antarctic environment”.
“I will use an experimental approach to assess the effectiveness of installing filters in washing machines for microplastics extraction from wastewater”
The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) is also pleased to announce their two recipients for their 2024 Antarctic Fellowship: Lucila Belén Morales and Dr Katherine Gallagher. Lucila project will enhance our understanding of how skua populations might respond to emerging climate change scenarios and Katherine’s project will use physical oceanographic models to identify areas where krill may be exposed to or consume microplastic marine debris.
To learn more about IAATO Antarctic Fellowship, please visit the IAATO Antarctic Fellowship webpage.
The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) work together to support talented early-career researchers, scientists, engineers, environmental managers, and other professionals. The purpose is to strengthen international capacity and cooperation in fields such as climate, biodiversity, conservation, humanities and astrophysics research by providing annual funding opportunities.
The COMNAP Early-Career Awards Recipients 2011-2023
The COMNAP Early-Career Awards (also know as COMNAP Antarctic Fellowship) was offered for the first time in 2011. It is designed to encourage the active involvement of early-career Antarctic persons and to strengthen international capacity and cooperation in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty. It is intended to allow people from a COMNAP Member National Antarctic Program country to undertake short-term visits to major international laboratories, field facilities, and/or home institutions in or operated by other COMNAP Member National Antarctic Programs (for a list of members, please visit the “Our Members” page of the COMNAP website). The awardee’s project should contribute to the objectives of the home or host National Antarctic Program’s objectives.
The following were awarded COMNAP Early-Career Awards and their reports are available below.
2011-2012 Amelia Marks “Characterisation of bidirectional reflectance of Antarctic surface”, Royal Hollaway, United Kingdom, to ENEA/PNRA Italy
2012-2013 Ursula Rack “Reconstructing historic Antarctic climate data”, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, to Scott Polar Research Institute, United Kingdom
2012-2013 Jenson George (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship) “Influence of small scale mixing on the primary productivity and water mass formation in the Southern Ocean” NCAOR, India, to GEOMAR, Germany
2013-2014 Charlotte Havermans “The impact of environmental changes on a key component of the Southern Ocean”, Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences, Belgium, to Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Germany
2013-2014 Luis Rodriguez Pertierra (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship) “Niche modelling as a tool for invasive risk assessment of vascular plants in terrestrial Antarctica”, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain to Australian Antarctic Division, Australia
2014-2015 Sandra Potter “Quantifying factors limiting implementation of Annex III of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty”, University of Tasmania, Australia, to Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) / Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE), Russia
2014-2015 Keith Soal “Characterisation of Ice-Structure and Fluid-Structure Interactions on Polar Vessels using Operational Modal Analysis”, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, to Germany and Finland
2015-2016 Alejandro Velasco Castrillon “100 years on: a re-evaluation of the first discovery of limno-terrestrial microfauna of the McMurdo Sound region”, University of Adelaide/South Australia Museum, Australia to McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
2015-2016 Inka Koch (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship), “Detecting marine ice internal layers and thickness in an Antarctic ice shelf with airborne ice penetrating radar”, University of Otago, New Zealand, to University of Texas, USA
2016-2017 Ronja Reese “Importance of Ice Buttressing in Antarctica”, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), United Kingdom
2016-2017 Blanca Figuerola “Vulnerability of Antarctic bryozoan communities to environmental change”, University of Barcelona, Spain, to the Australian Antarctic Division, Australia
2016-2017 Christopher Horvat (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship) “Modelling the Antarctic Sea Ice Floe Size Distribution”, Harvard University, USA, to the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere, New Zealand
2017-2018 Maria Gabriela Roldan “Inviting Antarctica into your home: an evaluation of public engagement with Antarctic science, science support, policy and technology”, Gateway Antarctica, New Zealand, to the Institute Antartico Chileno (INACH), Chile
2018-2019 Mikolaj Dziurzynski “Omics-based modelling of metabolic processes of Antarctic bacterium, Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TACI25, in response to selected heavy metals”, University of Warsaw, Poland, to the University of Florence, Italy
2019-2020 Miguel González Pleiter (Awarded a joint IAATO/COMNAP Fellowship) “Understanding the consequences of microplastics introduction in the Antarctic environment: the Plastisphere Resistome”, University of Alcala, Spain, to the University of the Republic, Uruguay
2019-2020 Cinthya Elizabeth Bello Chirinos “Surface velocity and facies classification of Znosko glacier, King George Island, Antarctica, using SAR satellite data time series”, National Agrarian University of Molina, Peru, to the Institute of Oceanography Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil
2020-2021 Paola Barros Delben “Health and Safety Risk Management in Isolation, Confinement, and Extreme Contexts”, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil, to the Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida, Lisboa, Portugal
2020-2021 Renan Lima “Coping with a fast-changing environment: an isotopic insight on the foraging ecology of pack-ice seals from the Antarctic Peninsula”, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Brazil, to the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States of America
2021-2022 Aanchal Jain “Policy analysis to curb plastic pollution in Antarctic environment”, Universidad Mayor, Chile to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Cambridge, United Kingdom
2021-2022 Antonio Polo Sánchez (Awarded a joint IAATO/COMNAP Fellowship) “Constraining the eruptive mechanisms of Three Sisters, Orca and Deception Island volcanoes (Bransfield Strait, Antarctica) through Noble Gases isotopic ratios. Implications for Geochemical Monitoring (BRANSVOLC)”, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Palermo, Italy
2022-2023 Rafael Gonzales-Serrano “Viral metagenomics of extant and ancient viruses from Antarctic soils”, Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (CBMSO), Madrid, Spain, to the University of Waikato, New Zealand
In 2016, at the SCAR Open Science Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, SCAR & COMNAP convened a Mini-Symposium on the fellowship programmes.
You can find the presentation by the SCAR Vice Chair CBET Professor Karen Lochte “What have we learned from the Fellowship Programme” here.
Other Opportunities
University of Canterbury Summer Scholarship Scheme
Each Austral summer, the University of Canterbury which hosts the COMNAP Secretariat in Christchurch, New Zealand, offers senior students an opportunity to work on a summer project. COMNAP has participated in two such projects and reports from each one are below.
2010/11 Max Gallagher “Impacts of Tsunami on National Antarctic Program Operations and Personnel in Coastal Antarctica”
2013/14 Hanne Nielsen “From Shelter to Showpiece: The Evolution of Antarctic Station design”