Meet Monica Kristensen at the UCL Scandinavian Studies celebration of Polar Bear Day and the Nordic Arctic on Tuesday 27 February 5.30-7.00pm. Click here for more information about the day’s celebrations and reserve a seat for the evening event followed by reception. All are Welcome!
About Monica
Monica Kristensen was born in Sweden 30th June 1950, and grew up outside Oslo in Norway. She has wintered on Svalbard for a total of seven years and lived in England (Cambridge and Guildford) for twelve years. At present she lives in Cambridge with her husband, daughter and two cats.
She has several university degrees in mathematics, theoretical physics and glaciology (PhD) from the Universities of Oslo, Tromsø and Cambridge, UK. She also has a Master degree in polar administration (Cambridge University).
Dr. Kristensen has previously worked for twenty years as a climate scientist, was director of the Meteorological Institute of northern Norway for three years, director of the international scientific community of Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard for five years, and has been Secretary General for two years of the Norwegian Lifeboat Association in Norway. She is now working as an author, polar historian and independent scientist.
Dr. Kristensen has been on many expeditions, mainly to Antarctica and the Arctic. She was the first woman to lead an expedition in Antarctica, when she and three colleagues in 1986/87 walked nearly two thousand kilometers on skis and with dog teams on a combined scientific and memorial expedition in honour of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. During her more than thirty expeditions to the Polar Regions, she has used a broad range of logistics; Hercules planes, helicopters, ships, skidoos, dog teams, skis. For a few years she owned an ice breaker (MS Aurora) and a five-cabin polar station (Bluefields) at 79 degrees south in Antarctica.
She has been coordinator and a leader of many international cooperation projects in the Arctic and Antarctic, the most recent an international study of climate-related glaciology, the Foxfonna Project on Svalbard, for four years.
Dr. Kristensen has received a number of awards and citations, among them is: Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club International in 1987, an award from the International Society for Protection of Animals (1987), several literary awards, several honorary doctorates, the National Geographic Magazine and Alexander Graham Bell Society annual Citation of Merit (1987) as well as the Finn Ronne Award (Explorers Club, New York) in 1989 and an environmental reward from AFFN in 2002.
In 1989 she received the Gold (Founders) Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for her research in Antarctica.
Dr. Kristensen has chaired and has been a member of a large number of national and international committees, among them she has been member of the Svalbard Council, member of the Board of the Norwegian Space Centre, member of the WMO Working Group on Antarctic Meteorology, member of the board of the Centre for International Climate Policy Research, University of Oslo, member of the Representative’s Board, The World Wildlife Foundation, President, Explorers Club, Norway Chapter, member of the Norwegian Council for Space Research, member of the National Committee on Polar Research (Arctic and Antarctica), member of Svalbard Science Forum, chairman of the Norwegian National Council on Genetic Resources and vice chairman and member of the Board, The Fridtjof Nansen Institute. From 2012 and to the present she is chairman the Kryos Foundation that funds climate-related research in the Arctic.
Dr. Kristensen has published articles in national and international scientific, as well as popular, journals, magazines, review books and newsletters. She has given many national and international published lectures, key note speeches and talks on behalf of the Norwegian Foreign Ministries. She was recently on a lecture tour in China (Beijing area) and Europe.
Dr. Kristensen has previously published several documentary and popular science books (Towards 90 degrees South, 1987; The Magic Country, 1989; Days in Antarctica, 1993) and is now writing a series of crime fiction novels from the arctic island of Svalbard (The Dutchman`s Grave, published in Norway, 2007), The sixth man, published in Norway, 2008, Operation Fritham, published in 2009, The Dead Man in Barentsburg, published in 2011, “The Expedition” in 2015, and a further ten more books in this series. The books are being published in French, English, German, Russian as well as Nordic and fourteen other languages.
The documentary books “The Tragedy in Kings Bay” was published in 2014 and “Roald Amundsen´s last journey” was published in Norway in 2017 and in the following years in several other countries. Her original theories about what happened to Roald Amundsen and his crew on board the French Seaplane Latham – as well as the six Italians that disappeared on board the envelope of the airship “Italia” are widely recognized for their scientific originality and ingenuity.
She is at present finishing her third documentary book “Empire in the Ice” that will be published in 2024, and has started work on her new project “Astrolabe – a study of ancient mapping of the Arctic”
Nordic Noir: The Scandinavian Crime Book Club 
