Department of Earth Sciences welcomes Associate Professor Noam Vogt-Vincent

Oxford Earth Sciences is delighted to welcome our new Associate Professor of Climate Science, Noam Vogt-Vincent, to the Department!

Noam is a marine scientist who combines numerical modelling with physical oceanography, climate science, ecology, and geoscience to research how the living ocean responds to climate change. He is particularly interested in understanding the physical and biological drivers of marine ecosystem connectivity, regional climate modelling and applications for palaeoceanography and palaeoecology, and building mechanistic understanding for how coral reef systems respond to a changing climate.

Originally trained as an Earth Scientist here at the University of Oxford, Noam then continued to complete his DPhil on marine dispersal in the Indian Ocean, during which time he was partially based in the Marine Biophysics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. After his DPhil, Noam moved to the Marine Ecological Theory Lab at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology as a NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow, investigating the potential for coral reefs to expand polewards in response to anthropogenic climate change.

The most pressing research questions for the future of life in our ocean are fundamentally multidisciplinary. Over the coming years, Noam is looking forward to building up the Connected Ocean Lab (Colab) in the Earth Sciences Department. This research group will bring together students and research professionals from across disciplines to tackle big questions in marine science through the language of numerical modelling, such as developing an understanding of how marine ecosystem connectivity responds to climate forcing over various timescales, and investigating the potential for reef-scale microclimates to act as coral reef refugia in response to rapid climate change.

Noam is joining St Hugh’s College as a Tutorial Fellow, and will teach Earth Sciences undergraduates in oceanography, climate science, ecology, and modelling. He is also enthusiastic about Earth Sciences outreach, having led events in collaboration with museums and regularly running outreach sessions through Skype a Scientist.