George Denton - University of Maine
Professor Denton's primary interest is the geological history of large ice sheets and smaller mountain glaciers. George has spent more than 30 field seasons in Antarctica, and also led projects dealing with the alpine glacier history of the Chilean Andes and the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Professor Denton is one of the foremost empirical scientists in Quaternary geology, and a climate theoretician as well. Collaborations with Wally Broecker and Peter Huybers have resulted in fundamental insights into abrupt ocean-atmosphere reorganizations in glacial cycles, and identifying the critical role of the Southern Hemisphere in climate change.

Wallace Broecker - Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
Broecker's research has focused on the role of the oceans in climate change, and recently on abrupt climate change and climate modes. He is best known for his development and popularization of the ocean "conveyor belt", linking the circulation of the global oceans. In 1975, he inadvertently coined the phrase global warming when he published a paper titled: "Climate Change: Are we on the brink of a pronounced Global Warming?" He co-authored the book "Fixing Climate: What past climate changes reveal about the current threat - and how to counter it", published in 2008. He has received many awards for his extraordinary contributions to geochemistry and the science of climate change.

Chris Turney - University of Exeter
Chris Turney has worked on reconstructing climatic change in New Zealand and the timing of human colonisation in Australia and Southeast Asia. Chris was awarded the first Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal by the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) for outstanding Quaternary scientist for his pioneering research into past climate change and dating the past. In 2008 he released a popular science book titled "Ice, mud and blood: lessons from climates past".

Tim Barrows - Australian National University
Tim Barrows' career has oscillated from the terrestrial to the marine. Initially working on marine sediment cores in the southwest Pacific Ocean, he then completed a PhD on glacial deposits in southeastern Australia, before switching back to marine sediments for his Post doc, aimed at reconstructing sea surface temperatures during the last glacial. This has provided an ideal background to integrate marine and terrestrial records from the Southwest Pacific region.

Lionel Carter - Antarctic Research Centre, University of Victoria, Wellington (VUW)
Lionel Carter has been a key player in the understanding of glacial/interglacial paleo-oceanographic changes in the New Zealand region and how these changes in the southwest Pacific region fit into the global oceanic system. He was the Chief Scientist on the Ocean Drilling Program Leg 181 east of New Zealand, and is an active member of the US Margins and Antarctic Drilling (ANDRILL) programs. These research programs relate past atmospheric circulation and terrestrial variability to environmental variations in the ocean.

Anthony Fowler - University of Auckland
Anthony Fowler's speciality is the development of kauri tree ring chronologies. His research has improved our understanding of kauri growth processes and climatic sensitivity, and how this iconic species can be used to reconstruct aspects of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). He and his colleagues at University of Auckland produced a 4000-year long calendar dated kauri record. He integrates information from tree rings, speleothems and lake sediments to investigate circulation variability and climate change in New Zealand for the Late Holocene.

Nancy Bertler - Antarctic Research Centre, VUW/Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS)
Nancy Bertler is the New Zealand representative of the International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) which aims to determine the spatial variability of Antarctic climate over the last 200 yrs-1000 yrs. Her research focuses on Southern Hemisphere climate and ocean teleconnections, particularly associated with ENSO phenomena and Pacific Decadal Oscillation in the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean region. Nancy is also in charge of the New Zealand ice core facility that opened at GNS in 2008.

Matt McGlone - Landcare Research
Matt McGlone is a world leader in the use of fossil plant pollen to reconstruct vegetation history. His work helped to date human arrival in New Zealand and the impacts on the landscape of early Maori and Europeans through deforestation. His research has also highlighted the effects of past circulation changes, ENSO variability and seasonality on vegetation and landscape. Matt is also one of New Zealand's leading champions of ecology and conservation, and has actively promoted better understanding of the origins, diversity and distribution of native species.

Peter Huybers - Harvard University
In his work Peter Huybers seeks to understand past climates and their variations by combining observational analysis with theory from the oceanic, atmospheric and earth sciences. His research deals with past climate on time scales from centuries to millions of years. Current topics include interactions between ice, volcanoes and the carbon cycle; orbital forcing of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere; and ocean circulation during the last glacial maximum.