Jury: “Bert Wouters cannot be pigeonholed”
Wouters wins European award for outstanding young scientists
During the yearly conference of the European Geosciences Union, Bert Wouters (IMAU) received the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists. He received the award because of his contributions to research on ice sheets, glaciers, and ice-cap mass-balance studies. The jury calls him “one of the most exceptional and outstanding young scientists working in the field of polar science.” Since receiving his PhD in 2011, Wouters has published six articles in Science, Nature, and Nature Geosciences.
Bert Wouters has been employed at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU) at Utrecht University since November 2015. “I was already collaborating with the Ice and Climate group for a while, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to join them,” says Wouters. “The group is especially good at modelling, and that fits well with my research on satellite data of glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland. We can improve the models by combining them with my satellite observations. Likewise, the models give us a better understanding of what’s driving the changes we’re seeing in the satellite data.”
Within and across disciplines
The jury praised Wouters not only for the quality of his research, but also for his exceptionally broad perspective, both within and across disciplines. “His background is in satellite geodesy but to attempt to pigeonhole him into one discipline would be to play down his interests and contribution to science,” according to the jury report.
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