Professor of Biology Signe Normand has been awarded the Victor Albeck Award for her ground-breaking research on climate change and nature conservation.

Signe Normand has developed innovative methods to understand how plants are affected by changes in the environment and the climate across space and time. She is one of the few researchers in the world – and the only person in Denmark – who combines special drone and satellite images, known as remote sensing, with the ecological study of growth rings in trees and shrubs. She has led several field expeditions to Greenland and collected unique datasets using this new methodology.

Signe Normand’s research provides an insight into how vegetation and biodiversity change – from the past to the future, from the tropics to the Arctic – seen both through the microscope and from the air. Signe Normand has contributed to demonstrating the complex way in which the annual growth and height of Artic shrubs is changing in line with climate change. She has also developed a model for understanding changes in the distribution of species since the last ice age – and has examined the riddle that, despite spreading for thousands of years, species have still not made their way to all areas with suitable climates.

Signe Normand has an impressive academic publication list and has received the Elite Research Prize and several other national and international awards and grants. She adopts an interdisciplinary approach, builds bridges between subject areas and opinions, and, in 2021, was appointed chairperson of Denmark’s first biodiversity council.

Signe Normand also received the Aarhus University Research Foundation's PhD award in 2011.