Scientia Professor Matthew England will be awarded the 2026 A.G. Huntsman Medal to honour his outstanding contribution to marine science.
UNSW Sydney Scientia Professor Matthew England has been named the recipient of the 2026 A.G. Huntsman Medal, in recognition of his impactful research on ocean currents and climate.
The medal, presented by the Royal Society of Canada and A.G. Huntsman Foundation, honours excellence of research and outstanding contribution to marine sciences.
“It’s a real honour,” said Prof. England, an oceanographer and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for our Future Oceans. “I feel humbled and amazed to be put in the same category as previous winners, who include some of the world’s top oceanographers.
“It’s a privilege to work as a marine scientist, it’s a great profession with a wonderful community of passionate people and I feel lucky to work in this field. We’re all trying to understand how the oceans work so we can protect them from a changing climate, pollution and other human influences. It’s a field of science that’s really rewarding.”
Prof. England is the third researcher from Australia to receive the award since it was established in 1980 by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. He follows in the footsteps of his PhD mentor, UNSW Emeritus Professor Trevor McDougall , and James Cook University Emeritus Professor Terry Hughes.
The award was created to honour the memory of Archibald Gowanlock Huntsman (1883-1972), a pioneer Canadian oceanographer and fishery biologist.
Dean of UNSW Science, Scientia Professor Sven Rogge, said the medal recognised Prof. England’s significant contribution to understanding the complex relationship between the world’s oceans and climate.
“Professor England’s research has revealed critical insights into how the oceans shape our climate, from major systems such as El Niño to the profound changes occurring around Antarctica.
“As the climate changes, rigorous ocean science is critical to understanding what lies ahead and informing how societies respond. This recognition reflects not only his scientific excellence, but the enduring importance and global impact of his work.”
Unravelling the oceans’ role in a changing climate
Prof. England’s research explores large-scale ocean circulation and its influence on regional and global climate, largely focusing on the Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctic climate processes.
His work brings together ocean and climate observations, numerical modelling and theory to explore the physics of ocean and climate phenomena, with a particular focus on the role of the oceans in a changing climate.
After studying mathematics as an undergraduate, his love of surfing and the ocean prompted him to look to how he could combine those interests.
“I was amazed to find out there was a field about the physics and maths of the oceans. Oceanography is a field of science that is relatively young. Quite early in my PhD I found myself looking at ocean currents that hadn’t been studied much before. There was the opportunity to make scientific discoveries, which has been very rewarding.”
Prof. England completed a PhD at the University of Sydney in 1992 holding a Fulbright Scholarship at Princeton University in 1990. He later held positions at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in France and the CSIRO Marine Laboratories in Australia before joining UNSW in 1995, where he held an ARC Federation Fellowship (2006-2010) and an ARC Laureate Fellowship (2011-2016).
He is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, with more than 300 journal papers, including research into global ocean heat uptake , the stability and variability of the ocean’s overturning circulation , the past and future behaviour of tropical climate modes including El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole, and abrupt changes in the Antarctic .
He was recently elected as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, alongside Prof. McDougall, one of the highest honours in the weather, water and climate community. He is also a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the American Geophysical Union and the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, and is widely engaged in scientific advisory roles. He has contributed to major assessments, including those of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
His current focus, at the Centre of Excellence for our Future Oceans , is bringing together Australia’s leading ocean science and engineering communities to harness new technologies to determine how oceans are changing and develop solutions to promote ocean sustainability and a thriving blue economy.
“Our oceans are changing at a profound rate, much faster than we’re able to adapt. Marine heat waves, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and toxic algal blooms are having a detrimental impact on marine ecosystems and coastal communities worldwide,” he said.
“Our centre will help deliver the science needed to better protect our vital marine environments and help our marine communities and industries better prepare for upcoming change.”
Prof. England said he was grateful for the support of the many mentors, colleagues and collaborators he had worked with over the decades, as well as his research team.
“I’ve had a great team of researchers who have come on the journey with me to discover how the oceans behave, how they affect our climate patterns, extreme rainfall and droughts. All these questions are hard to solve, and having a great team of researchers is what has made that possible,” he said.
The A. G. Huntsman Medal will be presented to Prof. England at an award ceremony at the Government House in Halifax, Canada, in November.
