We are delighted to have a leading climate scientist to give the first Jack Darbyshire Memorial Lecture, Iestyn Woolway. Iestyn specialises on climate change impact assessments, with much of his time is dedicated to the study of global environmental change. His work provides insights into how climate change will impact the environment providing roadmaps to resource managers tasked with accounting for ecosystem climate vulnerability in conservation and management decision-making.
Like Jack, Iestyn also hales from the Ffestiniog Slate mining communities, studying at Bangor University as an undergraduate. Although still in the early stages of his career Iestyn has been widely recognised for the outstanding global impact of his work through the award of numerous honours including the 2025 ASLO Yentsch-Schindler Award, the 2024 Philip Leverhulme Prize, the Royal Geographical Society Gill Memorial Award, and the 2023 Dillwyn Medal of the Learned Society of Wales.
Jack Darbyshire was the first Professor of Physical Oceanography founding the Department of Physical Oceanography in 1963. Originally from the slate mining communities of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Jack graduated from Bangor (then the University Collage of North Wales) with a first-class honours degree in physics in 1940. He subsequently moved to London, and the Admiralty Research Laboratory, where he became a key member of Group-W, tasked with predicting ocean waves in support of WW2 amphibious landings.
His arrival back in Bangor in 1963 proved pivotal in the development of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University, and of oceanography globally. To this day the University maintained a strong track record of world leading oceanographic research, with many Bangor alumni occupying leading positions in both academia and commercial oceanography globally.