Professor Bryn Hubbard awarded the prestigious Polar Medal

The Director of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, Professor Bryn Hubbard has been awarded the prestigious Polar Medal.
The award, announced today Friday 8 January 2016, is made in recognition of Professor Hubbard’s work as a “Polar scholar in glaciology, glacial geology and the structure and motion of ice masses”.
Professor Hubbard joins an illustrious list of recipients that includes Captain Robert F Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, who accompanied Scott during the 1902-4 expedition, and Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Vivian Fuchs who led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957-8.
Instituted in September 1904 to reward the participants in Captain Robert F Scott’s successful first expedition to the Antarctic region, in recent decades most awards of the Polar Medal have been made to scientists who over prolonged periods of time and in harsh conditions have worked to advance knowledge of the polar regions.
Professor Hubbard is one of three glaciologists with links to Aberystwyth University to have been awarded the Polar Medal; Professor Michael Hambrey, former director of the Centre for Glaciology, and Professor Julian Dowdeswell, former Head of the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences being the others.
Professor April McMahon, Vice-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University said: “This is a remarkable achievement and just recognition of a life dedicated to the discipline of Glaciology. Professor Hubbard and his colleagues at the Centre for Glaciology are at the cutting edge of understanding the effects of climate change on some of the Earth’s most extreme and inhospitable places, and of developing the scientific models that will help us understand better how our planet is likely to respond to an increasingly warm environment. It is particularly pleasing that a member of staff at Aberystwyth University has been acknowledged in this way, and underlines the relevance of research undertaken here to some of the pressing issues faced by humankind.”
Professor Hubbard said: “I am very honoured to be awarded the Polar Medal, recognising both the challenges and the importance of carrying out scientific research in our planet’s polar regions, and am grateful for the support of colleagues at the Centre of Glaciology at Aberystwyth University who have made all this possible”.

Photo: Professor Bryn Hubbard who recently spent 9 weeks drilling on the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica.