Ibai Rico Lozano

University teaching and the Juneau Icefield Research Program

"Taking the MSc was a great experience personally and on an academic level. On the one hand I became much more aware and conscious of the human-physical issues ongoing in the mountains. On the other hand the course provided the techniques and expertise to tackle such problems in a fast changing world. Finally, developing a glacial related MSc dissertation in Patagonia definitely helped me to improve my research capacities and opened the door to the PhD and the university teaching as well."

Ibai Rico received the MSc in Sustainable Mountain Development, having previously completed a Geography degree from the University of the Basque Country.

Ibai has recently finished his PhD research project about the glacial evolution of the Pyrenean glaciers at the University of the Basque Country - and is now teaching full time at the same institution. His main research lines are Cryosphere Monitoring through; Terrestrial Laser Scanning, Ground Penetrating Radar, DGPS, Mass Balance programs and AWS.

Ibai delivers teaching for different governmental or private bodies on Expedition Planning, Risk Management and Glacier Traveling and Rescue.  Previous research projects took him to the glaciers of Patagonia (Little Ice Age Geomorphology), the icecaps of Svalbard (Glaciology and Avalanche Assessment), the rock glaciers of the Austrian Alps and the debris covered glaciers of the Langtang Valley in Nepal. In 2016 he was part of the National Geographic supported Incognita Patagonia expedition - exploring and mapping for the first time the unexplored Cloue Icefield in Tierra del Fuego.  Ibai is also involved as safety manager and lecturer with the Juneau Icefield Research Program (Alaska) since 2015.