SPEAKERS
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Dr Jaci Brown
Acting Hub Lead for the NESP Climate Systems Hub
Dr Jaci Brown is currently the Acting Hub Lead for the NESP Climate Systems Hub. Jaci has taken time away from her substantive role as the Research Director for CSIRO Climate Intelligence Program to focus her energies on helping the hub realise its maximum potential in its final years.
The Climate Intelligence Program translates vast and complex climate information into decision-ready formats and applications. Their strengths include the extreme weather of floods, droughts and heat waves. They have a strong capability in coastal sea level modelling and projections. Stakeholders range across emergency management, private industry, finance and insurance, government policy, agriculture, indigenous communities, and Australia’s defence force. Prior to that role, Jaci led CSIRO’s Climate Science Centre which also incorporated the atmospheric, oceanic and climate observations and modelling. Jaci represented CSIRO at COP27 and 28 over the last 2 years. Jaci’s research has spanned agricultural climate, tropical oceanography, climate projections, fisheries, and seasonal atmospheric processes. Jaci is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Jason Mundy
Head of Division | Climate Change Policy, Adaptation and Risk Division, DCCEEW
Jason Mundy is Head of Division for the Climate Change Policy, Adaptation and Risk Division within the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Jason leads a team that supports the department’s climate change agenda, including by guiding how government and communities understand and adapt to escalating climate risks.
Jason was Head of Division for Parks Australia from 2020-2024, with responsibility for creating and managing Australia’s 58 Commonwealth Marine Parks (the world’s largest marine parks network), managing island parks in Norfolk, Christmas and Pulu Keeling Islands, and the Australian National Botanic Gardens, and organisational governance, including delivery of a major national program of infrastructure uplift.
Prior to this, Jason acted as Head of the Environment Protection Division, where he led a team to implement a national ban on certain waste exports, and served as Assistant Secretary of Parks Australia’s Marine Parks Branch from 2016-2019.
Jason was General Manager, Strategies Branch at the Australian Antarctic Division from 2011 until 2016. Prior to that, he worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on overseas postings in the Philippines and Thailand, and positions in Canberra, including Director, China Political and External Section. Jason has also worked as a Senior Adviser in the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and as a senior adviser in the International Division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
RH Clarke Lecture
Dr Annie Foppert
Senior Research Associate, University of Tasmania, Australian Antarctic
Program Partnership
Dr. Annie Foppert is a sea-going physical oceanographer at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership. Her research seeks to better understand the Southern Ocean’s profound role in our global climate. Using a variety of tools to observe the ocean – from ships to satellites, from robotic floats to seals with sensors on their heads – Annie researches how the Southern Ocean removes heat and carbon from the atmosphere, slowing the pace of climate change, and how the ocean carries heat towards Antarctica, influencing glacial melt rates and the pace of sea level rise. Her work provides critical insights into Southern Ocean circulation and dynamics, leading to less uncertainty in projections of Earth’s future climate.
Wednesday, 18 February 2026
Prof Thomas Spengler
Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Norway
Thomas Spengler is a meteorologist focusing on the combination of theory, observations, and modelling, specialising on scales ranging from meso and synoptic to large-scales. From 2015-2024 he was the director of the Norwegian Research School on Changing Climates in the Coupled Earth System (CHESS). He is currently leading research projects focusing on atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions at higher latitudes as well as air-sea interactions and cyclone development in the midlatitude storm tracks. In 2012 he was elected to the International Commission for Dynamic Meteorology (ICDM) and has been elected President of ICDM since 2019. Since 2022 he is the elected Leader of the Norwegian Geophysical Society. He was awarded the prize for best lecturer of the academic year 2012/2013 at the Faculty for Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Bergen and nominated for the IAMAS early career scientist medal in 2013. He leads a science outreach project together with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring four concerts with themes on Space, Ocean, Climate, and Humankind. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts as well as a member of the Mission Advisory Group for the European Space Agency Earth Explorer 11 mission WIVERN.
Dr Tessa Vance
Senior Research Associate, Australian Antarctic Program Partnership
Dr Tessa Vance is a palaeoclimatologist whose research investigates past climate variability and change to place contemporary and future climate change in context. She is a Senior Lecturer with the Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, which is a joint appointment with the Australian Antarctic Division. Tessa specialises in chemical records from Antarctic ice cores, specifically coastal ice cores that yield high resolution records spanning recent millennia. Her research focusses on using these chemical and physical signatures to investigate past climate
variability of the SW Pacific, Australia, the southern Indian Ocean and East Antarctica. Tessa has undertaken multiple fieldwork expeditions to Antarctica, and recently to the Canadian High Arctic
Dr Paul Krummel
CSIRO
Paul Krummel is a Principal Experimental Scientist at CSIRO Environment, based in the laboratories in Aspendale, Melbourne. He is a Kennaook/Cape Grim Lead Scientist for the Greenhouse Gas and Ozone Depleting Substances program and is the Australian Principal Investigator on the international Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE). His main science focus is on the analysis and research into atmospheric trace species relating to global trends, seasonal cycles, growth rates and emissions of greenhouse and ozone depleting gases. He is an author/co-author on more than 195 publications in peer-reviewed journal papers, and a co-author on book chapters and international assessments.
Thursday, 18 February 2026
Dr Sophie Lewis
Chief Scientist, Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility
Sophie is currently Chief Scientist with the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a research and advocacy organisation. Previously she was the ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, an independent statutory position that serves as a voice for the environment and climate action in the ACT.
Sophie has published over 50 research articles on climate change and variability during previous roles at the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne, and the Australian National University. She was awarded an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship to examine changes in rainfall extremes in 2014 and served as a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report from 2018 to 2021. Additionally, Sophie was named 2019 ACT Scientist of the Year in recognition of her research excellence and her commitment to children and young people and their futures in a changing climate.
Dr Stuart Minchin
CEO and Director of Meteorology, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Dr Stuart Minchin joined the Bureau as our CEO and Director of Meteorology in November 2025.
Stuart is an experienced CEO and executive leader of technical and scientific agencies in Australia and internationally. From 2020 he was Director-General of the Pacific Community, a science and technology for development organisation representing 27 member countries and territories across the Pacific region.
Previously, Stuart was Chief of the Environmental Geoscience Division of Geoscience Australia, a centre of expertise in the Australian Government for environmental earth science issues and the custodian of national environmental geoscience data, information and knowledge. He has also held senior roles with the CSIRO and Victorian Government organisations.
Stuart is a world leader in digital earth observation services and has represented Australia in key international forums. He has been the Principal Delegate to both the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management Group of Experts (UNGGIM) and the Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO).
He has also previously served on the Australian Space Industry Expert Reference Group and led the team responsible for ocean floor mapping for the Malaysian Airlines MH370 search.
Prof Nerilie Abram
Chief Scientist, Australian Antarctic Division
Professor Nerilie Abram is the Chief Scientist for the Australian Antarctic Program. Her research has used paleoclimate records to understand how Earth's climate behaved naturally in the past, and how human-caused climate warming is now changing Antarctica and its impacts on Australia. She has completed 5 expeditions to Antarctica, including leading the ice drilling camps for Australia’s Denman Terrestrial Campaign in 2023/24. Prior to commencing her role as Chief Scientist, she was based at the Australian National University and was a Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science and the Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century. She was a coordinating lead author for the 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report into the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, and will also serve as a coordinating lead author for the IPCC 7th Assessment Report. In 2024 she was elected as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
Prof Tony Haymet
Chief Scientist of Australia
Professor Haymet is an emeritus distinguished professor of oceanography. He has researched and taught for many years in Australia and in the United States, including as Established Chair of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Sydney. From 2002 to 2006, Prof Haymet was chief of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, based in Hobart, Tasmania. From 2006 to 2012, he was Vice-Chancellor, Director and Distinguished Professor of Oceanography, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. In 2010, Prof Haymet and a colleague at the Scripps Institution established MRV Systems LLC, a company that manufactures ocean robots. The autonomous drones take chemical and physical measurements across the world’s oceans. Prof Haymet was a board member and Chair of the Antarctic Science Foundation (2020-2025), a board member of Worldfish, based in Penang (2017-2020), and served on the Oceans Council of the World Economic Forum (WEF) including as Chair. He was Director, Oceans, at the Minderoo Foundation where he established a philanthropic research program (2020). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI).
Prof Christian Jakob
Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century
Prof Christian Jakob is Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century and the Professor of Climate Modelling at Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. Christian received his PhD in Meteorology from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich in 2001. He has been developing weather and climate prediction models for more than 30 years during appointments at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the UK, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and Monash University. His main interest is in understanding the atmospheric water cycle and its connection to weather systems. In particular, he and the Centre he leads aim to better understand how weather systems shape weather resources and high-impact weather, how they will change as our planet is warming and how ultra-high resolution climate modelling may help us overcome some of the knowledge gaps that still exist. Christian has been a IPCC Lead Author and is a Fellow of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. Christian's research and leadership have been recognised by the 2016 Ascent Award of the American Geophysical Union and the 2018 Morton Medal of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
Friday, 18 February 2026
Prof Peter Stott
Science Fellow in Climate Attribution, UK Met Office, and
Professor in Detection and Attribution, University of Exeter
Peter Stott is Science Fellow in Climate Attribution at the Met Office and Professor in Detection and Attribution at the University of Exeter. With artist and musician Pierrette Thomet Stott, he co-devised the Climate Stories project bringing together artists, scientists and community members to develop new narratives about climate change. His book Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial was shortlisted for the 2022 Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize. He was awarded the MBE in the 2024 King’s New Year Honours List for services to climate science.
Uwe Radok Award
Dr Jordan Brook
Bureau of Meteorology
Jordan is a research scientist specialising in severe weather, data assimilation, and radar analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Queensland. His thesis involved investigating hailstorms with weather radars and chasing storms in the field. At present, his work at the Bureau of Meteorology focusses on assimilating radar data into convection-allowing models to improve operational forecasts of severe weather.
nipaluna/Hobart
We acknowledge the Muwinina people as the Traditional Owners of nipaluna (Hobart), and pay our respects to Palawa/Pakana Elders past and present. We recognise their enduring connection to lutruwita/Tasmania’s lands, waters and skies, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining AMOS 2026.
Notes on local names: lutruwita = Tasmania; nipaluna = Hobart.