Press Release: Introducing AJOCS Editor-in-Chief

AOSIS is proud to introduce Professor Guy Midgley as the Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Climate Studies (AJOCS).

Prof Midgley is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Stellenbosch – Dept of Botany and Zoology, and Acting Director of the School for Climate Studies. He is an internationally acclaimed expert in the field of biodiversity and global change science. His primary research interests include biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, carbon dynamics, and species adaptation and extinction risk. He has carried out climate-focussed research since the late 1990s in both paleoecological and predictive modelling studies using spatial modelling applications, with links to empirical testing through field and controlled experiments.

Prof Midgley has published almost 200 scientific works, mostly in peer-reviewed journals, and many book chapters. He has several sole authored contributions in Science and Nature. His publication rate and h-index (76 Google scholar) are in the top few percentiles for the field of ecology. His career citations exceed 10 000 (Web of Science) and are almost 50 000 [>20 000 since 2018] (Google scholar). Prof Midgley has been recognised by Thomson-Reuters as a highly cited scientist, one of six South Africans to achieve this ranking in 2014 (± top 1% in field of global change science), and recently ranked amongst the most influential climate change scientists globally.

In addition to his impressive resume, Prof Midgley has received several acclaimed research awards, notably:

• Humboldt Foundation Research Award for lifetime contributions to science (2019)
• Royal Society of South Africa’s Marloth Medal for outstanding contributions in ecological, policy, fundamental ecology, applied ecology, and multi-disciplinarity (2017)
• National Research Foundation A rating awarded (2017)
• Elected Member Royal Academy of Sciences, South Africa (2014) and fellow of the Academy of Science South Africa (ASSAF).
• Member of IPCC team awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007

He currently heads up the School for Climate Studies at Stellenbosch University, and is actively growing multidisciplinary teams and projects, and developing curricula at a range of levels, including on-line offerings.

We are honoured to welcome Prof Midgley to the AOSIS family, and we look forward to his impact on this exciting scholarly journal.