9th June Keynote: Katherine Richardson

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In the morning plenary session on Wednesday the 9th participants will hear Professor and Vice Dean Katherine Richardson, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her theme is: "Jokers in the pack: Global repercussions of change in Polar Regions".

"I was trained as a scientist never to sit down with politicians - to throw your results down and run away, and not to get your hands dirty. But there's general acceptance now among really good scientists that this problem is so serious that we need to work together. And that gives me hope."

Katherine Richardson

All keynote speakers are now in place and will be presented on the website over the next days.

Katherine Richardson is Professor in Biological Oceanography and Vice Dean at the University of Copenhagen. She was one of the main organisers of the scientific conference "Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions", which sought to inform the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15).

Richardson is widely recognised as a speaker and frequently invited to give lectures on her research for scientific and non-scientific gatherings, more than 50 per year in recent years. Non-scientific audiences range from school children to political fora and formal gatherings. Highlights in 2009 include speaking at a high level briefing at the UN, a Globe International Meeting in the Senate in Rome and at a briefing of Members of the EU Parliament.

The overall focus of her research is the identification and quantification of factors influencing the flow of energy and material (especially carbon and nitrogen) in pelagic ecosystems. Most of her research has been on marine plankton (primarily phytoplankton). However, she has also studied higher trophic levels such as fish (both larvae and adults) and even harbour porpoises.

Her research includes climatic control of marine ecological processes, including predicting the influence of climate change on aquatic productivity, quantifying the role of biological processes in ocean uptake of atmospheric CO2 .

Richardson has participated in more than 60 research cruises, starting in 1975. Since 1983, she has participated (often as chief scientist) in cruises aboard the Danish Fisheries Research Vessel, Dana.

In 2006-2007, she led the largest project on a around-the-world-cruise, onboard Galathea3, with participation of researchers from four Danish research institutes aiming to develop a global picture of carbon flow in surface waters of the ocean, as well at CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. Until the Galathea3 cruise, most of her research has been carried out in the North Sea, Skagerak, Kattegat, North Atlantic and Greenland Seas

Richardson is American, born in 1954, married and resident in Denmark. She holds a Ph.D. (1980) from University of North Wales, U.K. She wrote her thesis on: "The Role of Dissolved Organic Material in the Nutrition and Survival of Marine Dinoflagellates". She entered her career in Denmark as a Biologist at the Danish Institute for Fisheries and Marine Research. She moved on to become Head of department and later Research Director of Department of Marine and Coastal Ecology, Danish Institute for Fisheries Research. From 1998 she became Professor in Biological Oceanography, and later Pro-rector, at Aarhus University. Richardson took up her current employment in Copenhagen in 2007.

Her list of publications includes more than 70 publications in or submitted to refereed international journals and books - and over 50 non-reviewed publications.