Passing the baton: Farewell and thanks to Huw Horgan, welcome Dan Lowry

As many of you already know, Huw Horgan has departed the shores of Aotearoa to head to the mountains of Switzerland where he and his family have settled in Davos. Huw’s partner and our ASP friend and colleague Ruzica Dadic has taken up a fantastic new role as Head of the Snow and Atmosphere Research Unit at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF. While Huw has stepped down from his Co-Principal Investigator role of the Antarctic Ice Dynamics (AID) project, he will continue working with us as a Co-Chief Scientist on SWAIS2C. I acknowledge this note is overdue, but it is never too late to acknowledge Huw’s major contribution to our work thus far.

Huw’s leadership and scientific input have been critical to the success of the AID. He drove and co-lead two major expeditions to the Siple Coast where our team successfully melted a hole through the Ross Ice Shelf and accessed the ocean cavity near the grounding zone of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Data from moorings deployed at the sites and information from geophysical surveys and short sediment cores continue to provide key new insight into the processes that occur at this critical interface between ice and ocean. His support for our young scientists and students has set us up to continue our world-class research into Antarctic geophysics and glacial dynamics. Thanks Huw – your knowledge, expertise and dry humour will be missed. Good luck to you and your whānau as you embark on your new adventure.