Inaugural Lecture: Professor Isabelle Ansorge

Dear colleagues and students

The Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural Lecture series serves as a platform for academics to share their body of research with members of the wider university community and the general public in an accessible way.

I am pleased to announce that our first Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural Lecture for the year, which will be presented online by Professor Isabelle Ansorge, will be hosted next month. The lecture, titled “Teaching the many (50) shades of blue – while the world is changing its shade”, is sure to be eye opening.

As one of the masterminds and teachers behind the SEAmester programme, Professor Ansorge will focus on the challenges and successes experienced over the past five years. SEAmester is a floating style university where postgraduate students from all over South Africa are trained on board South Africa’s polar research vessel, the SA Agulhas II. The oceans south of Africa provide an exciting and richly diverse marine environment ideal for training students with one of the most energetic ocean current systems in the world – the Greater Agulhas.

Greater awareness of the ocean’s physical, biogeochemical and ecological response to climate change, highlighted through these ship-board experiences, continues to inspire students. The long-term vision of the programme is to attract and retain young researchers by exciting their interest in aspects of marine-related climate change and co‐ordinating cross‐disciplinary research projects through a highly innovative and practical programme.

Professor Ansorge will also highlight some of the current climate-related marine projects that the university is involved in and the importance thereof globally.

Having built an observational oceanography career both nationally and internationally, Professor Ansorge is the first female head of the Oceanography Department at UCT. Her interests lie in Indian, Atlantic and Southern Ocean dynamics that include Southern Ocean eddy transports of heat and salt, frontal dynamics and variability in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its effects on Subantarctic Islands such as Marion Island.

Professor Ansorge’s list of past and present affiliations is a testament to her extensive experience in the field. She is, among others, a committee member of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, a member of the start-up committee for the Southern Ocean Observing System, an executive bureau member of the International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics and a former vice-president of the International Association for Physical Sciences of the Oceans.

Please join us online for this lecture.

When: Wednesday, 14 April 2021
Time: 18:00 SAST
Platform: Microsoft Teams

• Please register online to attend the lecture.

Sincerely

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
Vice-Chancellor

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