Geoff Cooper
Conservation Team

Having spent the first half of his career managing Marine Biology surveys for an Environmental consultancy and subsequently project managing the roll out of Information Systems in Japan and Europe for a large Pharmaceutical company, Geoff retrained as a traditional oak frame carpenter. His interest in conservation carpentry led him to work across Suffolk restoring buildings and ancient monuments, dating from as early as the fourteenth century.

A lifelong interest in Antarctic exploration has been rewarded by employment as a Conservation Carpenter by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust spending two seasons working on the conservation of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition Hut A at Scott Base in the Ross Sea Region. In addition to this Geoff worked with the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust earlier this year; he was one of the Conservation Carpenters who spent 10 weeks on Stonington island conducting surveys and emergency repairs to both Base E as well as East Base. This season he will manage the conservation project at Port Lockroy and Damoy in addition to carrying out the building conservation surveys and conducting any necessary emergency repairs.

Adele Jackson

Adele’s professional background is in arts and culture. She spent 10 years working in local government cultural services and arts management after graduating with a first class BA (Hons) in Arts Education and an MA in Educational Research.

Adele has worked in Antarctica since 2014, first as an expedition photographer in the polar tourism industry and most recently for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust as Base Leader and operations support at Port Lockroy.

Last year Adele moved to New Zealand to begin a PhD in Antarctic Studies at the University of Canterbury. Alongside this she is developing an arts-based international Antarctic project in collaboration with National Antarctic Programmes and Antarctic researchers.

Michael Powell
Conservation Team

Having left south Wales for the whales down south, few people can claim as much specialized experience in Antarctica than Conservation Carpenter Michael David Powell. Having worked “on the ice” since 1986, he has spent four winters (two as Rothera Base Commander), and numerous summers in the south, ranging in locale from the sub Antarctic Islands (Bird Island) to the Peninsula (Rothera Station, over 40 field camps, six Historic Sites and Monuments, and expedition ships), to the Ross Sea Heroic-Age Huts, and the South Pole. To him, the Antarctic is not a place to work, but a passion.

Since 2010 he has worked for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and brings invaluable knowledge and continuity to their team with his skills background and on-site familiarity. For example, he worked at Damoy Hut when it was an operational site and has since done periodic maintenance at the now-historic location. Similarly, at Port Lockroy, he visited the area before it was designated an HSM, and since working for the Trust, has helped conserve the site over multiple seasons. Michael has also been involved in major projects at Wordie House as well as Detaille, Horseshoe, and Stonington Islands. When not in Antarctica, Michael lives with his wife, Liesl Schernthanner, southern-sojourner, in a tiny cabin in the central Idaho Sawtooth Mountains, USA.