Ian Allison is an Honorary Research Professor at the University of Tasmania, and an Associate of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. He has studied ice and climate for over 45 years participating in or leading 25 research expeditions to the Antarctic. Ian has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers on Antarctic science on topics including ice shelf - ocean interaction; Antarctic weather and climate; sea ice; and the mass budget of the Antarctic ice sheet. He was co-Chair of the ICSU/WMO Joint Committee that organised and coordinated the International Polar Year 2007-2008, a polar research program involving 50,000 participants from 60 countries. He has been a Lead Author of both the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is the current President of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences of IUGG. In 2012, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research awarded him their Medal for International Scientific Coordination.