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Testimonials of Past SCAR Fellows

"I would like to give the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research a resounding thank you for the opportunity afforded to me through the international fellowship. Not only did it allow me to forge professional relationships which will last a lifetime but also enduring friendships around the world. In addition, the fellowship played an integral part in the overall and ongoing success of the New Zealand Terrestrial Antarctic Biocomplexity Survey (nzTABS). Thank you very much for all you have done. I feel very fortunate to have been awarded this immense opportunity."

- Nicholas Demetras (2008/09 Fellow)

"The SCAR fellowship scheme is really useful to me. The research topic I am carrying on concerns the use of trace metals on foraminiferal tests to reconstruct past climatic and oceanographic changes. It is rather a new field in Geology and thus it is still not completely developed. Furthermore, the methods that allow the measurements of trace metals on foraminiferal tests have been applied scarcely, if at all, by Italian researchers. The SCAR Fellowship scheme gives me the opportunity to work together with one of the most experienced researchers in this field, Dr. Dirk Nuernberg. I am shortly leaving for Kiel (Germany), to meet Dr. Nuernberg at the IFM-GEOMAR and to organise the work together with him. Early in 2009, I will return to Kiel for a longer period to perform the analysis. I am really enthusiastic about the existence of this funding program, without which many young researchers could not take advantage of the experience of other research groups working on the same field, nor share knowledge and skills."

- Marina Verducci (2008/09 Fellow)

"My name is Igino Coco, and I work as a researcher at the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, in Rome, Italy. My research topics are the interactions between the solar wind and the magnetic field of the Earth, which involve, above all, the polar regions, where intense particle fluxes precipitate in the upper atmosphere giving rise to complex systems of electric currents, and the polar aurora. I was granted a SCAR Fellowship in the 2007-08 programme, which allowed me to spend four months at the Dartmouth College, USA, from March until June 2008. In my opinion, SCAR, through these Fellowships, offers great opportunities of scientific exchanges, especially for early career scientists who often do not have the means to fund their own research yet. My personal experience has been fully positive: I was able to benefit from a kind of "sabbatical" period during which I could develop interesting ideas for my work and collaborate with brilliant scientists who highly enriched my know-how and my experience. Moreover SCAR allows young scientists to show their results in highly valuable Open Science Conferences, as I did myself, for example, in St. Petersburg in July 2008. I therefore hope governments and funding institutions all around the world will continue in supporting SCAR and, in particular, the SCAR Fellowship programme".

- Igino Coco (2007/08 Fellow)

"I received a SCAR fellowship to investigate spatial patterns of macrobenthic biodiversity on the least studied Antarctic continental shelf, the Amundsen Sea. The fellowship allowed me to participate in a multidisciplinary expedition carried out onboard RRS James Clark Ross, and thus to further my experience and knowledge about sampling regimes, management and taxonomic identification skills. The grant included research visits to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) which helped to build up a strong cooperation between my home and my host institution. It has also facilitated the rapid (morphological) identification of the material and initial analyses of the data, which have already been presented on the SCAR conference in St. Petersburg and which have led to the submission of a manuscript."

- Stephanie Kaiser (2007/08 Fellow)

"I held a SCAR Fellowship in 2006-2007. I used the Fellowship to predominantly work with collaborators in the US - in both Boston and Illinois. The Fellowship was a great career boost for me - I learned an enormous amount including a number of new techniques. I got exposure to other institutions and perhaps most importantly I had a lot of time talking science ideas and research with several collaborators. That has led to a joint funding application with one of the collaborators which we hope will lead to success. The networking in particular was really good and a great opportunity for someone from a relatively remote country to form strong and productive collaborative bonds. I also think the Fellowship and the work conducted during it in part helped me secure a tenured academic lectureship. I can't thank SCAR enough for the opportunities they give to early career Antarctic scientists and it's great that as an independent postdoctoral fellow (at the time) that I was eligible to apply - many such awards are only given to PhD students. Thanks - I am very grateful and feel privileged."

- Victoria Metcalf (2006/07 Fellow)

"The SCAR Fellowship I was awarded helped me to exchange work at the collaborating institution for several months, exchange data with colleagues and proceed my scientific project. This would not have been possible in this efficient way without the SCAR Fellowship. Most surprisingly, the scientific results achieved with the SCAR Fellowship form the basis for an upcoming new joint project between the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (Germany) and the British Antarctic Survey (UK). As a first step, this cooperation aims at a reconnaissance flight in the season 2008/9 over a certain region of Berkner Island, Antarctica, to map the internal layer architecture of the ice sheet with radio echo sounding. If the results from this flight yield the expected results, an additional survey covering the whole of Berkner Island is envisaged for the season 2009/10. Without the SCAR Fellowship, the idea for this project would not have been borne."

- Olaf Eisen (2006/07 Fellow)

"This fellowship enabled me to visit the Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy, to jointly process GPS data from both a US and Italian network in Antarctica. My time spent in Italy was invaluable, allowing collaboration between two major programs from different countries. In addition to the obvious research achievement of a joint data set that can be utilized by both groups, the experience in itself provided me with a once in a lifetime opportunity. Seeing the research process in a country other than my own gave me a new perspective, helping me to better understand what I can do as a young researcher to further facilitate international collaboration. I was able to interact with a wide range of researchers, from students to post-docs to full professors, gaining insight from every person I met. I made plans for future collaboration with researchers that I would have not worked with had I not been in Italy. Because of my SCAR fellowship, I not only have a better understanding of research outside of the US, but I also have a better understanding of my own research. I am confident that my experiences have made me a better student, and will enable me to participate in future international collaborative work. I am incredibly grateful to SCAR for providing me with this opportunity, and I know that it will continue to benefit my research career both until the end of my graduate studies and beyond."

- Stephanie Konfal (2006/07 Fellow)

"The SCAR Fellowship allowed me to spend six months at Bristol Glaciology Centre in the UK. The experience was invaluable, as I worked with outstanding researchers in my field and developed numerical modelling skills that would have been difficult to acquire in my home country. I found the SCAR Fellowship an extraordinary opportunity to work internationally and to develop confidence in my science and in myself. I undertook the SCAR Fellowship prior to my PhD and I am positive that without the time spent in Bristol I would not have developed the same depth of understanding of numerical procedures and of the physics of glaciology. The SCAR Fellowship also allowed me to present my work at the 2006 SCAR Open Science Conference in Hobart, Tasmania, and I have maintained strong links with SCAR in various roles ever since."

- Narelle Baker (2005/06 Fellow)

"The SCAR Fellowship provided me with the possibility of developing an international collaboration with European scientists during my PhD. My thesis is on the biodiversity of deep-sea off Antarctica and the fellowship provided funds for the genetic studies. My analyses showed that populations collected from different depths (from 100 to more than 3000 meters) and geographical regions (Weddell, Scotia and Ross Seas) are quite distinct from each other. This finding of an even higher species number than that previously reported illustrates the importance of the Southern Ocean as a biodiversity hotspot. Last but not least, working in Brussels gave me the opportunity of meeting scientists from all over Europe, some of whom I intent to collaborate further with in my future scientific career. I would like to thank SCAR and the funding institutions for such a significant experience!"

- Simone Brandao (2005/06 Fellow)

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