International Scientific Committee

Peter Convey is a terrestrial ecologist with over 34 years experience of working with the British Antarctic Survey and in a wide range of polar environments (20 Antarctic summers and one winter, multiple Arctic (Svalbard, Greenland, Russia) field or teaching periods).  He has broad and diverse research interests, with over 540 publications (current H Index 58, Web of Science, 70 Google Scholar), including:

• Biodiversity and biogeography of polar terrestrial invertebrates, plants and microbes
• Life history and ecophysiological strategies of polar terrestrial biota
• Polar ecosystems as models of the past and future global consequences of climate change
• Palaeobiogeographical reconstruction of Antarctica
• Human impacts, conservation and management in Antarctica

Pete obtained his PhD in Zoology in 1988 from the University of Cambridge, working on the behavioural ecology of dragonflies. He is an ‘Individual Merit’ (IMP) senior research scientist (NERC Band 3) at BAS, where he is deputy leader of the core ‘Biodiversity, Evolution and Adaptation’ Team, as well as being a member of the BAS Science Management Team, where he has responsibility for international interactions. He is very active in the development of national and international Antarctic science priorities and collaborative research programmes, in particular through the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). He was Co-Chair of the SCAR Science Research Programme ‘Evolution and Biodiversity in Antarctica’ (2006-2013), and previously a founding member and steering committee member of the ‘Regional Sensitivity to Climate Change in Antarctica’ research programme. Until recently, he chaired the SCAR Development Council and was Deputy Co-Chair of the SCAR research programme ‘State of the Antarctic Ecosystem’. He is a member of the SCAR Advisory Group on Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment. In the UK, he has been a member of the National Committee on Antarctic Research since 2005, and of All Party Parliamentary Groups - on Biodiversity 2010-2015, and The Polar Regions 2016 to present.

Pete has a strong record of University teaching and supervision. He has been an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Birmingham since 2000, a regular Guest Lecturer at UNIS, Svalbard, and a Visiting Professor at the National Antarctic Research Centre, University of Malaya, Malaysia (2010-2017). He was awarded an Erskine Fellowship to work at Gateway Antarctica (New Zealand) in 2013/14. In 2020 he was elected to a prestigious Distinguished Visiting Professorship of Polar Biology at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He has supervised 30 (completed) PhD students and has 10 current PhD and Master’s students, and is a STEM Ambassador. He has been an examiner for 26 PhD and 5 Master’s theses. Awarded the United Kingdom Polar Medal in 2007, Pete’s professional standing is further recognised by Fellowship of the Society for Biology and Chartered Biologist status, and Fellowship of the Royal Entomological Society and Cambridge Philosophical Society.