Odysseus Archontikis (2019, DPhil in Earth and Environmental Sciences) has just been announced as the award winner of the prestigious Tyge Christensen prize for 2021 by the International Phycological Society (IPS) for his article “A reappraisal of the taxonomy and biodiversity of the extant coccolithophore genus Palusphaera (Rhabdosphaeraceae, Prymnesiophyceae)”.

The Tyge Christensen Prize was first announced in 1997 (Phycologia 36: 1) to honour the memory of the late Professor Tyge Christensen of the University of Copenhagen, a renowned expert in chrysophytes and other flagellates, and former IPS President. The Prize is awarded annually for the best paper published in Phycologia during the previous year and consists of a cash award as well as commemorative certificates for the author(s). Scientific significance, originality of the subject matter or techniques, comprehensiveness and clarity of presentation are the criteria considered by the judges for the choice of the winning paper. The 60 papers published in the journal Phycologia in 2021 (Volume 60) were evaluated by a panel of 7 judges.

Odysseus’s research interests lie in plankton palaeobiological studies with a particular focus on marine calcifying microplankton response to past and present climate change. His DPhil project, funded by NERC-DTP and a University College Oxford Radcliffe Scholarship seeks to shed light on the evolutionary processes driving speciation under past climate regimes and therefore, to improve predictions of the future character of plankton biodiversity that is the foundation of all ocean ecosystems.

Odysseus commented, “I am truly delighted to receive such a great honour from IPS for my article and incredibly proud to be awarded a prize named after such a talented and renowned phycologist. It was only at the beginning of my DPhil studies, I first came across the name Tyge Christensen, reading through that ‘Latin translations of the descriptions of new taxa… were contributed by Dr T. Christensen of Copenhagen…’ from a publication of 1983 on coccolithophores.

“I am extremely grateful for the appreciation and deeply honoured that other, way more qualified, researchers have found a bit of potential in my work. I warmly thank my supervisor Jeremy Young for the wonderful collaboration, all members of my DPhil supervisory team, Prof. Ros Rickaby, Prof. El Mahdi Bendif, Dr Steve Stukins, and Dr Jeremy Young, for their kind encouragement in my studies, and Univ and NERC-DTP for supporting my research.”

You can read the article online.

Published: 6 January 2023

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