The International Glaciological Society has announced the 2021 winners of its honorary awards. 

The International Glaciological Society was founded in 1936 to provide a focus for individuals interested in practical and scientific aspects of snow and ice. The Society recognizes achievements in glaciology and contributions to the development of the science through its three honorary awards. 

The winners for 2021 are listed below.

Richardson Medal 2021: Regine Hock

The Richardson Medal is awarded to a single person or a collaborative group/team that has provided outstanding service to the International Glaciological Society and/or to the field of glaciology

Regine Hock (Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Norway and Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, USA) has given long-standing and ongoing service in support of glaciology within the IGS and much more broadly.

Within IGS she has served on Council, as Vice-President, on the Awards and Nominations committees, as Chair of the Ad-hoc committee on IGS governance change, and as a champion for strengthening the IGS stance on inclusion and diversity. She has been an Associate scientific editor of both J. Glaciology and Ann. Glaciology and was Chair of the Local Organizing Committee of the 2012 IGS Symposium in Fairbanks. Within IUGG Regine has been Secretary General of the Snow and Ice Hydrology Commission of IAHS (ICSIH), and served on the Bureau and as President of IACS.

Regine was instrumental in establishing the Cogley Prize for early career scientists, awarded alternately by IGS and IACS. She established the gold open-access on-line journal Frontiers in Earth Sciences - Cryospheric Sciences and was its Chief Editor from 2015 to early 2021. Regine played a lead role in establishing and updating the Randolph Glacier Inventory and has contributed as team member/leader to Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS); CliC; AGU; Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA); and the Glacier Model Intercomparison Project activities. She has contributed to the IPCC AR4 and AR5 Reports as Contributing author and expert reviewer and to the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate as the Coordinating Lead Author.

Regine is an outstandingly productive scientist; a prolific supervisor and mentor of postgraduate students; and is active in outreach to school students. She Initiated, organizes, and teaches at the International Summer School in Glaciology held in McCarthy, Alaska every second year since 2010.

The Seligman Crystal 2021: Adrian Jenkins

The Seligman Crystal is awarded to a single person or a collaborative group/team that has made exceptional scientific contributions to glaciology, defined as any snow and/or ice studies.

Adrian Jenkins (Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK; formerly, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK) has been at the forefront of research into ice-ocean interaction for over 35 years and has contributed outstanding interdisciplinary work at the boundary of glaciology and oceanography.

His formulation and application of a 1-D plume model (later extended to 2-D) has been fundamental to quantifying melting and freezing patterns under ice-shelves, and in analysing marine ice deposition.

His related parameterisations and studies on subglacial outflow have also been key to the study of ice-ocean interactions; as have his formulation of how ocean temperature, salinity, and turbulent mixing combine to control the rate of ice melting in the ocean. He has identified climatic processes that control the variable rate of upwelling of Circumpolar Deep Water onto the Antarctic continental shelf, and hence influence ice shelf melt. Adrian has been a pioneer in autonomous underwater vehicle development and the deployment of phase-sensitive radio echo-sounding for ice shelf observations.

He has influenced the research direction and interdisciplinarity of ocean- ice interaction studies not only from his publications, but also through his many international collaborations, his mentoring of ECS, his leadership of the Forum for Research into Ice Shelf Processes (FRISP) for 19 years, as a convenor of many EGU sessions, and through his many contributions to the Karthaus/EISMINT summer schools. He has been on IGS council and served as an IGS editor.

IGS Early Career Scientist Award 2021: Elizabeth ("Lizz") Ultee

The IGS Early Career Scientist Award is given in recognition of significant scientific and/or community contributions to Glaciology by an Early Career Scientist.

Lizz Ultee (Middlebury College, Vermont, USA) was awarded her PhD in 2018. She combines theoretically-rigorous mathematical glaciology with geophysical observations to contribute across a range of glaciological topics.

These include a mathematical model of calving using an extended plastic approach, developing novel stochastic methods to model the variability of surface mass balance over Greenland, statistical examination of meltwater runoff and its societal impacts in Peru, and the use of remote sensing to bound the tensile strength of glacial ice.

As well as her substantial scientific contributions to glaciology, Lizz demonstrates an extremely strong commitment to a variety of community services including outreach and public engagement, service to the IGS, and a record of actively promoting diversity and equity, especially to increase the number of women in STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics).


More information about the International Glaciological Society and their awards scheme, including details of past winners, can be found on the International Glaciological Society website.


Cover image by Valentina Zotova.

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