Martin Beniston has studied environmental sciences (BSc) and atmospheric and climate science (MSc) in England, France (PhD) and at ETH-Zurich (Habilitation Degree). He has worked in research Institutions in Australia, France, Canada, Germany and Switzerland, including ETH-Zurich. His main domains of expertise are regional climate modelling, analyses of climate data, and the process understanding of extreme weather and climate events.

He was from 1992-1997 a vice-chair of one of the climate-impacts working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize) as well as part-time senior scientist in climate research at ETH-Zurich. He was appointed full professor and head of the Institute of Geography at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, from 1996-2006.

In 2006 he moved to the University of Geneva as full professor and director of its Institute for Environmental Sciences, until his retirement in the Summer of 2017. From 2008-2014 he coordinated a major European project on climate and water, involving about 100 scientists in 10 European, South American and Central Asian countries. He was also the initiator and scientific leader of the 2013 “Planet Solar Deep Water” expedition in the North Atlantic, using “Planet Solar”, the world’s largest solar-powered ship that was designed in Switzerland.

He has over 200 publications in the international literature and was editor or associate editor of several journals and book series with international publishers. In 2000, he was elected to the Academia Europea, the European Academy of Science.

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Further information at URL: www.unige.ch/beniston