20002024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Professor Andrew Mackintosh is Head of the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. Prior to his appointment at Monash in 2019, he was the Director of the Antarctic Research Centre as well as Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences within the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). He served as Director of the Antarctic Research Centre from 2017-2019, and Deputy Director and Associate Professor from 2013-2017. He was appointed at Victoria University of Wellington in 2002, and prior to this from 1999-2001 was a European Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (UK), a Bachelor of Science (Honours 1stClass) from the University of Newcastle (Australia), and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne.

Professor Mackintosh is internationally recognised for his research on the large-scale interactions between glaciers, ice sheets and the climate system. He has worked extensively on the Antarctic Ice Sheet and New Zealand glaciers, as well as the Greenland Ice Sheet and glaciers in Iceland and South America. In Wellington Andrew secured research funds of ~10 million dollars to develop a research group that is internationally known for applying numerical models of glaciers in combination with high-quality geochronology to understand past, present and future ice behaviour. His work has led to new understanding of glacier response to anthropogenic and natural climate variability, as well as providing new insights into the physical mechanisms that are causing rapid and potentially irreversible changes in ice sheets today. His former Masters and PhD students have continued to elite universities and laboratories, and have gone on to win their own competitive grants, and fellowships.  At Monash, Andrew is Leader of Theme 1 'Climate Processes and Change' within the ARC Special Research Initiative 'Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future'. 

Professor Mackintosh carries out a significant amount of international service to his discipline. From 2012-2019, Andrew was Secretary General of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences. In this role, he helped organise three major international conferences in Davos, Switzerland (2013), Prague, Czech Republic (2015), and Wellington, New Zealand (2017). In 2015 Andrew was elected to the council of the International Glaciological Society, and in 2017, he was selected as a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC). In 2023 he was elected to the Bureau of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) as well as appointed Vice President of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences; in this role, he also serves as (joint) IUGG Delegate to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and Union Representative to the Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science
(https://gender-equality-in-science.org/members-of-the-committee/)

Andrew has been a visiting Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University, USA, and a Benjamin Meaker visiting Professor at the University of Bristol, UK. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Tasmania, and Victoria University of Wellington. He has previously served on the editorial board of Geology magazine and Frontiers in Cryospheric Sciences.

Professor Mackintosh has given scores of public talks and media interviews in addition to briefings to politicians, including sitting and former New Zealand Prime Ministers Rt. Hon. Helen Clark (2018), Rt. Hon. Jacinda Adern, Minister for Science Dr Megan Woods (2016), and former Governor General Sir Jerry Mateparae (2016).

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
  • SDG 14 - Life Below Water
  • SDG 15 - Life on Land

Education/Academic qualification

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh

Award Date: 1 Oct 2000

Bachelor of Science (Honours), University of Newcastle

Award Date: 1 Apr 1994

Bachelor of Science, University of Melbourne

Award Date: 1 Apr 1993

External positions

Executive committee member, IUGG Union Commission on Climatic and Environmental Change, Internationale unie van geodesy en geofysica (International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics )

14 Jul 201913 Jul 2023

Vice President, International Association of Cryospheric Sciences

12 Jul 201912 Jul 2023

Lead Author, World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

1 Oct 201831 Dec 2019

Fellow, Internationale unie van geodesy en geofysica (International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics )

31 Jul 2018 → …

Secretary General, International Association of Cryospheric Sciences

31 Jul 201111 Jul 2019

Research area keywords

  • glaciers, climate, sea level, ice sheets, Antarctica

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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