Dr Graeme Chesters has joined 90 North Foundation to build and guide our research strategy, capacity, outputs and impact, primarily through the Arctic Ocean Research Unit developed in partnership with the University of Exeter. He will also be developing an international scientific research network focused on the Arctic Ocean/Central Arctic Ocean.

Dr Chesters, was formerly an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, and Director of the International Centre for Participation Studies (University of Bradford); and has taught conflict resolution, mediation and peace keeping techniques to politicians, diplomats, journalists and aid workers from around the world.

More recently, Graeme has been following his passion for photography, writing and research about the polar regions. This led to him becoming a multi-award winning and internationally exhibited photographer whose work, documenting the High Arctic and its peoples (Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard), resulted in an invitation to become Artist in Residence at the Spitsbergen Artist Centre, on Svalbard in 2022. His subsequent 2023 exhibition in Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, ‘Svalbard People’, was the northernmost photographic exhibition in the world.

Graeme was the recipient of the 2020 AP Magazine and MPB Inaugural ‘Rising Star’ Award for his work documenting change in the high Arctic, and he is a certified Marine Mammal Surveyor with the cetacean charity, ORCA. In summary, Graeme brings a rare blend of research experience, expertise in effecting change, and a fast-expanding knowledge of the high Arctic.