Shin Sugiyama
The 2025 Julia and Johannes Weertman Medal is awarded to Shin Sugiyama for outstanding work in the field of glacier dynamics and ice-water interactions, including seminal contributions to our understanding of lake-calving glaciers and ice-dammed lake outbursts.
Shin Sugiyama has made key contributions to glaciological knowledge over an impressively broad and diverse set of sub-topics using hydrological and glaciological field studies, theoretical fluid dynamics, and numerical modeling. Early in his career, he mastered hot-water borehole drilling, which permitted direct observation of englacial and subglacial processes. He has recently combined hot water drilling and terrestrial geodetic methods with satellite and uncrewed aerial vehicle remote sensing. His approaches include careful measurements combined with innovative analytical methods to elucidate the impact of meteorological conditions on ice motion in the Alps, Patagonia, and the Antarctic Peninsula. In Patagonia, he investigated lake-calving glaciers and the details of water circulation, mass wastage of the glacier front, and the resulting change in glacier motion. He showed that processes controlling lake-calving glaciers differ from those in marine environments. In particular, he elucidated the role of wind in lake circulation and heat transport to the glacier fronts, where they accelerate mass wastage. This work has made him a leading expert on lake-calving glaciers.
For the past two decades, Sugiyama has also been instrumental in fostering a hands-on learning environment by organizing international field courses for graduate students in Sapporo and at the Rhône Glacier in the Alps. These courses have provided invaluable opportunities for students to engage directly with glaciological research, inspiring a new generation of scientists to explore and understand the natural world through fieldwork. He has increasingly contributed to interdisciplinary science and ecosystem impacts of glacier change, notably through community-based research in Qaanaaq, Greenland, where he has demonstrated a strong commitment to both informing and engaging with local communities.
Finally, Sugiyama is an exemplary citizen of the international scientific community, as evidenced by numerous international collaborators and his extensive professional service to organisations such as CliC (World Climate Research Programme Climate and Cryosphere) and the International Glaciological Society. He is valued and respected as a colleague across the glaciological community, with a modesty that belies this stature. His scientific and personal contributions have strengthened bonds across the international community and have made glaciology a more diverse and inclusive science.