Professor John Shepherd CBE FRS

John Shepherd is a physicist who has worked on a wide range of environmental issues, including the transport and deposition of atmospheric sulfur dioxide, the dispersion of tracers in the deep ocean, the assessment and control of radioactive waste disposal in the sea, the assessment and management of marine fish stocks, and the ocean’s role in climate change.

He was the first Director of the Southampton Oceanography Centre, and Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. John was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999 and awarded a CBE in 2010. He has been a member of the DEFRA Science Advisory Council and chaired the DECC Science Advisory Group from 2009 to 2013.

John has been involved in several of the Society’s science policy studies and chaired its study, Geoengineering the Climate, in 2009. More recently, he has helped prepare several public documents on climate science, including the Society’s Climate Change: A Summary of the Science and its recent joint briefing document with the US National Academy of Sciences.

Professional position

  • Emeritus Professor, Ocean & Earth Sciences, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton

Subject groups

  • Other

    Science policy

  • Earth and Environmental Sciences

    Climate sciences

  • Patterns in Populations

    Biological modelling

Awards

  • Humphry Davy and Claude Bernard Lecture

    On 'Changement climatique: surprises éventuelles et solutions possibles'.

Committees Participated Role
Research Appointment Panel A(i) January 2017 - December 2018 Deputy Chair
Commonwealth Science Conference Grants Committee July 2016 - June 2017 Member
Research Appointment Panel A(i) January 2015 - December 2016 Member
Environmental Observation Core Group November 2014 - November 2015 Member
Science Policy Expert Advisory Committee January 2013 - December 2017 Member
Sectional Committee 5: Earth & environmental sciences January 2010 - December 2012 Member
Remuneration Committee May 2008 - May 2013 Member
Council December 2005 - November 2007 Member