Rate My Professor Neil Holbrook

Neil Holbrook is Professor of Ocean and Climate Dynamics in the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania. He holds a BSc (Honours Class I) from the University of Sydney awarded in 1990 and a PhD from the same institution completed in 1995. With nearly three decades of experience in ocean and climate science, Holbrook previously held the position of Associate Professor of Climatology and Climate Change at the University of Tasmania from 2008 to 2017. He currently serves as Centre Head of Oceans and Cryosphere within IMAS and co-leads the Ocean Extremes Research Program as a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX), where he also leads the UTAS node.

Holbrook's research specializations centre on developing process-based understanding of the predictability of ocean and climate extremes and their impacts on marine ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on marine heatwaves. He led the first global assessment of marine heatwave drivers, elucidating predictability linked to large-scale climate modes, published as Holbrook et al. in Nature Communications (2019). Other major publications include Hobday et al., 'A hierarchical approach to defining marine heatwaves' in Progress in Oceanography (2016); Oliver et al., 'The unprecedented 2015/16 Tasman Sea marine heatwave' in Nature Communications (2017); and Ganachaud et al., 'The Southwest Pacific Ocean circulation and climate experiment (SPICE)' in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (2014). He co-leads an international Working Group on Marine Heatwaves and contributes to the CLIVAR Research Focus on Marine Heatwaves in the Global Ocean. Holbrook is a Fellow of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in Geosciences (2021-2023 and 2025), and was named on Reuters' list of the top 1000 most influential climate scientists (2021). He has held editorial roles as Associate Editor for the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science and previously for the Journal of Climate (2006-2008), served as President of the International Commission on Climate (2011-2019), and led Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Marine Biodiversity and Resources (2009-2013). His contributions have established foundational knowledge for marine heatwave research worldwide.