Professor of Oceanography, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna

Nadia PINARDI holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University, and she is associate tenure professor of Oceanography at Bologna University, Italy. Her interests range from ocean numerical modelling and forecasting to data assimilation for the physical components of the marine environment, development of the marine biogeochemical models and oil spill numerical modelling coupled to operational oceanographic forecasts. She has written more than hundred papers in peer reviewed journals on a wide range of oceanographic modelling and oceanographic data analysis subjects. Her latest research topics are the understanding of uncertainties in ocean forecasting, large scale, long term variability of the Mediterranean Sea, sea level trends and the energetics of semi-enclosed seas.

She has coordinated, since the middle of the nineties, the development and implementation of operational oceanography in the Mediterranean Sea. She is now co-president of the Joint Committee for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM), a WMO and Unesco-IOC coordinating group for the development of operational meteo-marine and oceanographic services. Nadia Pinardi was awarded in 2007 the European Geophysical Union (EGU) Fridtjof Nansen Medal for Oceanography and in June 2008 the Roger Revelle Unesco Medal.