JPI Oceans is pleased to welcome Thorsten as the new head of the secretariat in Brussels. Thorsten is taking over from Jacky Wood, who has skilfully navigated JPI Oceans into a new setup as an autonomous legal entity (AISBL) for intergovernmental membership and considerably extended the portfolio of JPI Oceans actions. “I would like to thank Jacky for her dedication and efforts at the helm of the JPI Oceans secretariat” said Thorsten. “I am looking forward to working with the secretariat team, the member countries, European institutions and other partners to further develop JPI Oceans as a platform of collaboration for research, innovation and policy support - to ultimately achieve a healthy and productive ocean.”
Thorsten has his scientific roots in marine research and builds on ample experience in the management of international research and innovation programmes. Before joining JPI Oceans, Thorsten was at Future Earth as director of the Global Hub in Paris, working with researchers and innovators on the big societal challenge of transitioning the world to global sustainability. At Future Earth he helped establish multi-stakeholder Knowledge-Action Networks on a sustainable oceans and on risks and extremes. Previously, Thorsten was the Executive Director of the Past Global Changes (PAGES) programme in its headquarters in Switzerland. He facilitated global research and synthesis on past environmental changes that pre-date systematic measurements and observations by using evidence from archives such as fossil corals, tree rings, ice or sediment cores. In his earlier days as a researcher, Thorsten had specialised in the field of paleoceanography. At the Universities of Kiel, Germany, and Cambridge, UK, he analysed deep-sea sediments to study the substantial changes that occurred in ocean and climate over the past thousands to ten-thousands of years.