Interests

Southern Ocean dynamics and ecosystem change at Subantarctic Islands

Biography

Isabelle Ansorge is a Senior Lecturer in the Oceanography Department at the University of Cape Town. Her research interests focus on the impact changes in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current have on Subantarctic Islands and in particular how such changes impact their ecosystem functioning. As the departmental observational oceanographer she is responsible for the hands-on sea going training of all postgraduate students and runs an annual "class-afloat" module for honours students. Dr. Ansorge is involved in a large number of international programmes and is currently the leading scientist on the SAMOC-SA (South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) programme. In addition over the past 4 years, she has been invited to join a number of national, international (IAPSO EC, SCAR, SCOR) and review panels (IPY, IYPE, SOOS) with the aim of improving Southern Africa’s visibility in the international scientific community. Membership in these various committees has provided her with a solid network base within both the national and international geophysical community and exposed her to current research activities. Her involvement at these meetings and workshops has been to advertise the work undertaken within the marine science community, identify cross institutional, multi-disciplinary research opportunities, build capacity, and nurture postgraduate students and emerging researchers on matters such as funding support to attend international conferences.