People of ICEBERG—Élise Lépy from University of Oulu

Throughout the ICEBERG project, we will introduce the people working on the project. In this personnel introduction, project co-lead Élise Lépy from University of Oulu introduces herself and shares what inspires her about ICEBERG.

My name is Élise Lépy, and I am a senior researcher at the University of Oulu in Finland and Docent in Arctic human-environment relationships and environmental change from the University of Eastern Finland.

In the ICEBERG project, I wear multiple hats: I co-lead the project, oversee its overall management, and conduct research primarily within WP2, which focuses on risk assessment and local resilience strategies for ecosystems and communities.

Working in ICEBERG is truly inspiring — an exciting adventure that gives me the opportunity to collaborate with scientists from many different disciplines and countries. As an environmental geographer with a holistic understanding of the relationships between people and their environment, coordinating such an interdisciplinary project is, from a scientific perspective, a remarkable and rewarding experience.

As coordinators, we not only discuss the work carried out by the other scientists in the project but also review and comment on their official reports for the funder. Even though I am not an expert in every topic the project deals with — from biogeochemistry to Arctic governance — I genuinely enjoy this aspect of my role, which involves connecting these different fields so the project can ultimately provide the best possible recommendations to policymakers at local, national and EU scales. Also engaging with stakeholders beyond academia — such as local communities, industries, and NGOs — adds concrete, real-world relevance to our research.

From a personal perspective, I have always been fascinated by the white vastness of the polar regions, inspired early on by the stories of great explorers such as Paul-Émile Victor, Jean Malaurie and Jean-Louis Etienne. It felt natural that, as a researcher, I would travel from my native France and turn my interest to sub-Arctic and Arctic landscapes, seeking to understand how people, ecosystems, and environmental change interact across the Circumpolar North. For more than 20 years, I have studied northern European and Canadian landscapes to understand how natural environments are affected by human activities and to examine the multiple pressures — from climate change to resource extraction — that affect the ways of living and traditional livelihoods of local and Indigenous communities. I have a strong thirst for learning, and ICEBERG offers me the chance to discover natural and cultural landscapes that are new to me, while meeting and learning from even more communities — especially in Greenland, Iceland, and Svalbard.

Addressing marine and coastal pollution in the Arctic is crucial because this region, though remote, is exceptionally vulnerable to environmental change. I truly hope that, through our communication means and project outreach, we can create a meaningful societal impact by raising public awareness about the fragility of the Arctic and show how everyday actions — even far from the region — can contribute to its pollution, and that solutions are both necessary and achievable.