Andrew Weaver

Andrew Weaver is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria. His primary research interests are large-scale ocean circulation and the oceans’ influence on climate, and, more recently, how climate has influenced human dispersity over millennia.

He received his B.Sc. in mathematics and physics, with first class honors, from the University of Victoria in 1983; his undergraduate work earned him the Governor General’s Gold Medal. He then studied at the University of Cambridge, supported by both an NSERC science and engineering scholarship and Queen Elizabeth Centennial scholarship, receiving a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics in 1984, before moving on to the University of British Columbia, where he earned his Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1987.

After terms as a research associate at the University of New South Wales (1987-88), where he studied the dynamics of the Leeuwin Current off Western Australia, and an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington’s Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (1989), he joined the faculty of McGill University as an assistant professor and NSERC University Research Fellow (1989-92). Although he retained a position as adjunct professor at McGill until 1995, he accepted an appointment as assistant professor at the University of Victoria (UVic) in 1992, where he has since remained. During his tenure there, he has also been an NSERC Steacie Fellow (1997-99) and a Killam Fellow (2002-04).

Among his many contributions to climate science is his role in developing the UVic Earth System Climate Model (ESCM), one of the most comprehensive such models in the world. He has also published over 170 articles in such respected journals as Nature, Science, Journal of Climate, Geophysical Research Letters, and Journal of Archaeological Science. During his Guggenheim Fellowship term, he continued his research on biogeochemical feedbacks on polar climate stability.

Andrew Weaver is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society; the latter awarded him its President’s Prize in 2007. His other honors include a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) Young Explorers Award, the UVic Craigdarroch Silver Medal for excellence in research, and a UVic Distinguished Alumni award. He is a member of the Canadian Geophysical Union, American Geophysical Union, European Geophysical Union, and the Oceanographic Society. Since 2005 he has been the Chief Editor of the Journal of Climate.