Photo: Gudrun Sylte
To those of you who are new at the Bjerknes Centre, Hilary Birks is professor Emerita in the Ecological and Environmental Change Research Group, dept of Biology at UiB and a founder member of the Bjerknes Centre.
She is being honoured for "extraordinary contributions to Quaternary palaeoecology, particularly in reconstructing landscapes across the periglacial northern hemisphere based on pollen and plant macrofossil assemblages"
"I feel immensely honoured to be elected a fellow of the AAAS. It is a huge honour too for Bjerknes, BIO, and UiB, without whom I would not have been able to do my research and teaching.
It is wonderful that Quaternary palaeoecology has been recognised within the whole of science in this way; there are only a few such folk that are AAAS fellows, and they are all American or Canadian. Quaternary palaeoecology has a very long tradition of excellence in Bergen, started by Knut Fægri. I hope that a new palaeoecologist will be appointed soonin BIO to continue this world-famous tradition into the nextgeneration”, Hilary Birks writes.
Hilary Birks is the third fellow elected from Norway. The two others are Per Oskar Andersen (UiO) and the Nobel Prize-winner Edvard Moser (NTNU). She is invited to go to San Jose in California for the annual meeting of AAAS in February where the award will be presented.
Congratulations Hilary, for another feather in your hat!