Shackleton Medal | For the Protection of the Polar Regions

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The Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions

Welcome to the fifth Shackleton Medal

We believe that if the Boss was alive today, he would be striving to the utmost to save the polar regions from the myriad threats they face. Polar protection is a global priority: what happens at the poles impacts our entire planet and the nature and scale of these threats is becoming more apparent every year as the graphics below highlight. There are reasons to be pessimistic, but that’s not in our nature. There is science to be done, people to persuade, advances to be made.

The Shackleton Medal shines a light on the activists, scientists, explorers and communicators that are stepping forward to make a difference. A £10,000 prize and a hand-struck silver medal will be awarded to the person judged to have done the most to protect the polar regions so loved by the Boss. The judging criteria reflect the character of Shackleton himself; we are looking to reward people who have shown courage, determination, ingenuity and leadership in their work.

‘'What's happening at both poles is now front page news. It's everyone's duty to protect them.'

Hon. Alexandra Shackleton

SHACKLETON MEDAL WINNER 2026

Roman Troublé - Microbiologist and leader of the Tara Polar Station Project

Troublé won the judges approval for his vision of a futuristic vessel with a geodesic dome that has been designed to drift in polar sea ice all year round. Scientists will be able to study one of the fastest changing environments on the planet in the Tara Polar Station, which contains six laboratories, a central moon pool that allows researchers to take samples directly from the ocean, underwater and aerial drones, and a sauna to keep spirits up. Troublé is a respected microbiologist and award-winning sailor who first worked in the polar regions as part of a team that dug up a woolly mammoth in Siberia. He has been working on the design and funding for the Tara Polar Station which can withstand temperatures as low as -52 degrees Celsius for eight years.

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The Judges

President of the James Caird Society

The Hon. Alexandra Shackleton

Alexandra Shackleton is the granddaughter of Ernest Shackleton and President of the James Caird Society. She is a passionate advocate for continuing the legacy of her grandfather and promoting research in the areas that fascinated him. Her work includes making a film in Ireland about the cabin where Ernest Shackleton died.

She has given speeches around the world in his memory – many of which have been to maintain her grandfather’s close links with Chile – and has been the patron of numerous expeditions and research projects. She has also launched two ships and four boats.

Chief Executive of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society

John Geiger

John Geiger was appointed Chief Executive Officer of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Canadian Geographic Enterprises in 2013. He is also the internationally bestselling author of seven books, including Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible, and Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine. William S. Burroughs called him “a fellow writer of exploration literature.” His work has been translated into fourteen languages.

In 2018 he was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and Honorary Member of the James Caird Society. In 2021, Geiger was awarded the Order of Canada, in 2023 he received the RCA Medal from the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and in 2024 he was made a Commander of the Order of Civil Merit by the King of Spain.

President of the Sámi Parliament

Pirita Näkkäläjärvi

Pirita Näkkäläjärvi is the President of the Sámi Parliament in Finland. She has a unique career combining Indigenous rights advocacy and global business. She is a third term elected member of the Sámi Parliament in Finland and a member of the Inari municipal council from the Greens’ list (independent). She worked as the Editor and Head of Yle Sápmi (the Sámi-language operations of the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle) from 2012–2016.

She has also worked along the Mergers & Acquisitions lifecycle at Merrill Lynch, Nokia, Booz & Company, Metso, Strategy&, PwC, EY-Parthenon and Helen Ventures. Pirita holds an MSc in Economics from Helsinki School of Economics and MSc Media & Communications (with Distinction) from London School of Economics.

Director of Cambridge Zero

Professor Emily Shuckburgh

Professor Emily Shuckburgh is a scientist and mathematician who is Director of Cambridge Zero. She is also Professor of Environmental Data Science at the Department of Computer Science and Technology. Other positions include being a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey. She leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks.

A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science. She is co-author with HM The King and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.

Guardian US Live News Editor, editor of Seascape: The State of Our Oceans

Chris Michael

Chris Michael is the Guardian’s US Editor for the UK time zone. Previously he was the Ocean Editor, leading the Guardian Seascape project, and has overseen in-depth investigative series on the Arctic for Guardian US. Before the Guardian he worked for the International New York Times in Japan.

He is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, was nominated for the 2020 Orwell prize and in 2021 won the Emmy award for best crime and justice reporting.

Sunday Times bestselling author and professor in science communication

Professor Lewis Dartnell

Professor Lewis Dartnell is a research scientist, presenter and author based in London, UK. He graduated from Oxford University with a First Class degree in Biological Sciences and completed his PhD at University College London. He is now Professor in Science Communication at the University of Westminster. His research is in the field of astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars.

He has won several awards for his science writing and outreach work and regularly contributes to newspapers and magazines. He has also written five books, of which The Knowledge was an international bestseller, and Origins: How the Earth Made Us was a Sunday Times top history book of 2019. His latest book, Being Human, was published in June 2023 and was a Waterstones Book of the Year. He is also the scientific adviser on The Book: The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization.

Vice President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Cornwall) of the University of Exeter

Professor Martin Siegert

Leading glaciologist Professor Martin Siegert FRSE has been Vice President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Cornwall) of the University of Exeter since November 2022. Prior to this he was Co-Director of the prestigious Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment; he is still a visiting professor at Imperial. He has also been Head of the School of GeoSciences at Edinburgh University, where he now holds an Honorary Professorship.

He has undertaken three Antarctic field seasons, using geophysics to measure the subglacial landscape and understand what it tells us about past changes in Antarctica and elsewhere. In 2013 he was awarded the Martha T Muse Prize for excellence in Antarctic science and policy, and in 2007 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has written/edited eight books.

Interim Dean for the Faculty of Science and Technology at Middlesex University London

Professor Klaus Dodds

Klaus Dodds is Interim Dean for the Faculty of Science and Technology at Middlesex University London. Prior to this he was Executive Dean for the School of Life Sciences and Environment at Royal Holloway University of London and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was also a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw and a trustee of the Royal Geographical Society.

His many publications include Ice: Nature and Culture, The Arctic: What Everyone Needs to Know, and The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction. His most recent published books are the acclaimed Border Wars: The Conflicts of Tomorrow and Unfrozen: The Battle for the Future of the Arctic – co-written with Mia Bennett. He has visited the Arctic and Antarctica numerous times and is an Hon Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey.

Wildlife and travel photographer

Sue Flood

Sue Flood OBE is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker, zoologist, adventure travel leader and public speaker. Her work takes her all over the world but she has a special passion for the wildlife and icy beauty of the Polar regions and is one of the very few women professional photographers who returns again and again to Earth’s harshest and most demanding environments.

Her first visit to the Poles happened during her 11 years in the BBC’s prestigious Natural History Unit, working on such global hits as The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, with Sir David Attenborough; on National Geographic and Discovery Channel co-productions and on the Disneynature movie Earth.

Since then, Sue’s travels as a photographer have taken her to hundreds of destinations on all seven continents and her experiences have ranged from living with reindeer herders in Siberia to swimming with humpback whales in the South Pacific.

Photographer, filmmaker and picture editor

Ian Dawson

Ian Dawson is a photographer whose work is guided by a lifelong fascination with the planet’s most remote and fragile environments. A fine art graduate, he has built an international career as a photojournalist, picture editor, and filmmaker, producing work for The Sunday Times, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, and many other leading publications. His assignments have ranged widely – from conflict zones and royal tours to wildlife and environmental reportage.

An award-winning press photographer represented by Getty Images, Ian now focuses on the polar regions, where he documents people, wildlife, and landscapes at the frontlines of environmental change. Ian is a member of the Guild of Picture Editors, The Alpine Club, and The Explorers Club. In 2025, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his contributions to visual storytelling and geographic knowledge.

Director of the Fram Museum in Oslo

Geir O. Kløver

Geir O. Kløver is the director of the Fram Museum in Oslo, where visitor numbers have risen from 218,000 when he started in 2005 to more than 410,000 in 2024. Last year he oversaw the installation at the Fram of the 4D North Pole Flight Simulator in connection with the 100th anniversary of Amundsen’s polar flight in the twin-engined N25. He is also author, co-author and editor of a number of books on polar expeditions, including Lessons from the Arctic: How Roald Amundsen Won the Race to the South Pole.

A contributor to several travelling exhibitions on polar history, he has given lectures on most continents – including the Arctic and Antarctic.

British polar explorer

Felicity Aston

Felicity Aston MBE is an explorer, author, speaker, and student research scientist. She became the first woman to ski solo across Antarctica in 2012, making it into the Guinness Book of World Records for her 59-day journey covering 1,744 km. She travelled to Antarctica for the first time when she was 23, working with the British Antarctic Survey as a Meteorologist.

The numerous expeditions she has led include B.I.G. (Before It’s Gone), a four-year pan-Arctic project collecting scientific information about Arctic sea ice. She has been a finalist for the Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions on two occasions.

SHACKLETON MEDAL WINNER 2025.

Cormac Cullinan - Environmental Lawyer

In a closely fought race, Cormac Cullinan has emerged as the winner of this year's Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions. Cullinan won because of his radical plan to protect the Southern Ocean and Antarctica through a new Antarctic Rights Initiative. A South African lawyer who cut his teeth on anti-apartheid legislation, Cullinan became a major figure in environmental law when he wrote Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice. This argued for the first time that natural phenomena – such as rivers, or forests – should be given legal "personhood" so they could be defended in court cases.

The work won him global recognition and now his Wild Law firm is taking the concept to a whole new level, spearheading a movement which argues that the entire continent of Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean should be given rights as a distinct legal entity. “Nobody’s making decisions about Antarctica based, really, on what’s best for Antarctica,” he said. “If we could get its [legal] status to at least that of a country, then it could be represented at the UN or in court."

Cullinan is the fourth winner of the Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions, which was set up in 2022 to perpetuate Shackleton's legacy of courage, leadership and determination against the odds at the poles.

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SHACKLETON MEDAL WINNER 2024

Valérie Courtois - Executive Director Indigenous Leadership Initiative

Valérie Courtois, winner of the 2024 Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions, is at the forefront of a powerful movement that has revolutionised environmental conservation in Canada and is seizing the attention of world leaders. Her vision to connect Indigenous Guardians as the “eyes and ears on the ground” to preserve ecosystems has won Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s backing and seen her nominated as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most Influential Climate Leaders.

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SHACKLETON MEDAL WINNER 2023

Pen Hadow - Explorer & Conservationist

Whittling down from the significant longlist of nominees for the 2023 Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions was a challenging but inspirational task for the judging panel.

We were proud to announce that record-breaking explorer and conservationist, Pen Hadow, was awarded the Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions. The award recognises Hadow's decades-long commitment to protect the central Arctic Ocean and his latest initiative to establish a Marine Protected Area in the region.

“I was stunned to receive such a special award which came at a critical moment in the roll-out of our conservation mission for the Arctic Ocean. It gave our work extra currency and topicality - and attracted a considerable and touching response from within the polar community.” - Pen Hadow

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SHACKLETON MEDAL WINNER 2022

Dr Heïdi Sevestre - Scientific Researcher, Expedition Leader and Climate Activist

The winner of the inaugural Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions was Dr. Heïdi Sevestre, the pioneering climate activist, expedition leader, scientific researcher, documentary maker and lobbyist.

Amongst an exceptionally strong list of nominees, Dr. Sevestre stood out for the extraordinary courage she has demonstrated working in the field and her drive and determination to communicate her message.

You can see Heidi in action in the new National Geographic docuseries, Arctic Ascent, which follows renowned climber Alex Honnold and his team as they venture into Greenland's remote and icy wilderness.

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