New SAGES Director announced

Professor Matteo Spagnolo of the University of Aberdeen has been appointed as the new Director of SAGES (Scottish Alliance for Geoscience Environment and Society). SAGES pools world-leading expertise in geoscience and environmental science from across Scotland’s research base, creating a multi-disciplinary alliance at the forefront of earth and environmental research.

Professor Spagnolo is based at the School of Geosciences in the University of Aberdeen. Matteo’s research focuses on glaciology and geomorphology. He uses field, remote sensing and GIS techniques to understand the interaction between climate and glaciers. Matteo has worked on ice sheet and alpine landscapes in various settings worldwide and more recently, his interests have included the dynamic relationship between glaciers and volcanoes.

Matteo gained his BSc in Natural Sciences from Pisa, followed by an MSc in Remote Sensing and GIS from Firenze, and a PhD in tectonic geomorphology from Genova, in Italy. He moved to Sheffield in 2007 for a postdoc on drumlins, and, two years later, to Aberdeen where he has been ever since, except for a year spent at Berkeley in 2017 as a visiting professor.

Matteo has been a vibrant member of the Aberdeen Cryosphere and Climate Change Group and has held various roles including School PGR Director, Elected Senator, and Head of Geography and Environment. He has been a proud member of SAGES since he moved to Scotland and has been part of the SAGES Research and Innovation Committee since 2018.

Professor Spagnolo takes the reigns from outgoing Director Professor Mark Inall, who led SAGES from 2015-2023. We wish Professors Inall and Spagnolo all the very best in their new positions and look forward to workiing with SAGES to find ways to engage end users (industry, policy-makers, third sector organisations) with research projects and trigger innovation within the membership.

SAGES

SAGES serves to promote inter-disciplinary collaboration between research partners, and to act as a knowledge broker between research originators and ultimate users and beneficiaries of research. SAGES is a partnership between the Universities of Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, Stirling, SAMS UHI, SUERC, UWS and the British Geological Survey, Scotland.

ECCI runs the SAGES Innovation Programme which supports policy and industry placements and internships. Running since 2017, the programme is designed to develop the skills of early career researchers and allows policy and industry organisations to benefit from the skills, knowledge and insights of SAGES researchers.