Professor Tom Pederson

Tom Pedersen, Professor of Paleoclimatology and Marine Geochemistry at the University of Victoria, Canada.  Pedersen holds a BSc in Geology from the University of British Columbia (1974) and a PhD in Marine Geochemistry from the University of Edinburgh (1979). He served with the faculty of the Department of Oceanography at UBC from 1981 to 2002, as well as Associate Dean, Research and Faculty Development in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at UBC from 2000-2002. In 2002 moved to the University of Victoria to become Head of the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences. He subsequently served as Dean of Science at UVic for six years and in 2009 was appointed the founding Executive Director of the new Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, established at UVic via a $90M endowment from the Province of British Columbia. Pedersen stepped down from that role in late 2015 and is currently on research leave, writing a book about BC’s climate-action history and experience. He also serves as the Chair of the Ottawa-based non-profit, the Canadian Climate Forum, is a member of British Columbia’s Climate Leadership Team, and is one of two Canadian scientists appointed to the West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Panel, along with ocean scientists from California, Oregon and Washington State.