Grant Macdonald

Welcome! I'm a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University, with a broad interest in studying ice sheets, sea ice, and penguins using remote sensing and fieldwork. Currently, I am primarily focused on researching how emperor penguins have responded to changes at the margin of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and sea ice, throughout the satellite record. I also retain an interest in better understanding ice shelf and glacier stability, sea ice characteristics, and coastal polynyas.

I grew up in Newcastle, England before going onto study Geography at the University of Edinburgh, and Polar Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. After 8 months working at el Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas (CEAZA) in Chile, and a year teaching English in China, I moved to Chicago to complete my PhD investigating the surface hydrology of ice shelves and its implications for ice-shelf stability. I then stayed in North America for two postdoctoral positions, at the NASA Center for Advanced Measurements in Extreme Environments (CAMEE) at the University of Texas San Antonio, and at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island. I have conducted fieldwork in Antarctica, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic and Chilean Andes, and spent time studying at UNIS in Svalbard.

I am also very much interested in the human consequences of climate and cryosphere change. In 2023 I attended COP28, working with the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative. 

In my spare time I enjoy football, running, walking,  sitting on trains, attending gigs and language learning (as best I can...) - I take Spanish and Chinese classes. I'd love to be able to communicate my science well in Spanish!

Contact me at: grant.j.macdonald[at]durham.ac.uk

Follow me on Twitter: @geogeordie