The Forefront of Discovery: A Transforming World

Chris Rainier

Chris is a documentary photographer, National Geographic Explorer and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London. He’s highly respected for his photographs of endangered cultures and traditional languages around the world and has taken photos on all seven of the world’s continents.

He’s published books documenting cultural practices, from the Stone Age tribes of New Guinea to the ancient tradition of tattoo body marking. Chris is also the Director of the Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation, a global programme focused on legally preserving biodiversity and cultural heritage.

Dame Jane Francis

Jane is the Director of the British Antarctic Survey, a Chancellor of the University of Leeds and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She’s also involved with the international polar organisations Antarctic Treaty and European Polar Board and is on several advisory boards of national polar programmes.

She’s a trained geologist with an interest in climate change and has conducted research projects about how fossils can be used to determine the change from greenhouse to icehouse climates in the polar regions over the past 100 million years. Jane has undertaken more than 15 scientific expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica in search of fossil forests and information about climates of the past.

Jane was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in recognition of services to UK polar science and diplomacy. She was also awarded the UK Polar Medal by Her Majesty The Queen, the Royal Geographical Society’s Patrons Medal and the 2022 Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Award for Planetary Health.

Jon Ablett

As our Senior Curator of Mollusca Jon looks after a collection of almost eight million specimens, from tiny snails the size of a pin-head to a giant squid that’s more than eight and half metres long.

His current areas of interest include the land snails of Southeast Asia and South America and the history of malacology - the study of molluscs. Jon is currently the President of the Malacological Society of London and is looking into the lives, careers and expeditions of past malacologists.

He has carried out fieldwork across Vietnam and Thailand and in 2019 was involved in a marine expedition to explore the biodiversity around the remote UK overseas territories of St. Helena and Tristan da Cunha.

Dr Anne Jungblut

Dr Anne Jungblut is one of our Principal Researchers and a National Geographic Explorer. Her research focuses on microscopic life that’s able to thrive under the extreme conditions of the polar regions.

In addition, Anne also uses environmental microbiology to gain a better understanding of the effects of climate change. When she’s not out in the polar regions, Anne works in microbiome research for sustainable agriculture as well as in mine site rehabilitation.

She’s published more than 45 peer-reviewed publications as well as six book chapters and has participated in more than 15 expeditions to the polar regions.

This has taken her not only to the ice-covered lakes in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys but to the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic where she carried out research on the glaciers dominating the landscapes of South Georgia Island.