Professor Ian Meiklejohn is Professor and the current Head of the Geography Department at Rhodes University, South Africa. Ian served as SAAG president from 2006 – 2008. Ian’s post-graduate education took place at the then University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. He obtained his BSc degree in Geography and Chemistry in 1983, his Honours 1985 and his PhD, focussing on “Aspects of the weathering of the Clarens formation in the KwaZulu/Natal Drakensberg: implications for the preservation of indigenous rock art" in 1994. From there, Ian taught at the University of Pretoria where from 1995 – 2009, attaining the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology. During that time, he developed the first undergraduate GIS courses at the University of Pretoria, and re-established Geomorphology as an academic field in the Department. Ian also played a role in establishing the Centre for Environmental Science.

Ian was appointed Professor in the Department of Geography at Rhodes University in 2010. Here, he developed new undergraduate and Honours courses in Remote Sensing and Earth Observation. Currently he teaches undergraduate Meteorology, Climatology and Geomorphology in an introductory course in Earth Science, for which he bears overall responsibility. Ian has also taught Environmental Management, Environmental Change, Geomorphology, and Applied Remote Sensing at Honours level.

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One cannot know Ian without knowing of his passion for the Antarctic and for mountains. This was ignited when Ian, growing up in the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, discovered that he was related to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a member of Robert Scott’s fatal expedition and author of the Antarctic classic "The Worst Journey in the World”.

From this followed Ian’s research interests. They include the deterioration of rock art; periglacial geomorphology in southern Africa; geomorphology and climate change on Marion Island and in the Antarctic; landscape evolution on Marion Island; and modelling using Geographic Information Systems.

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Ian has a robust international profile. Ian took part in the British Antarctic Survey Mars Glacier Party in 1992, an involvement that contributed to the naming of Natal Ridge on Alexander Island. Ian has worked in the Swedish Arctic, and was Principal Investigator of a research project on Marion Island, later extended to the Antarctic continent, investigating Geomorphology and Climate Change, the SANAP/NRF-funded project "Landscape Processes in Antarctic Ecosystems" 

Through his work in the Antarctic, Ian was one of only 200 persons, the first and only South African, and one of two geomorphologists invited to become part of the International Campaign for the Poles, a campaign whose members include heads of state, explorers and dignitaries Ian was also the South African Delegate to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) for six years. He is the current South African delegate to the International Permafrost Association (IPA) and a council member for the Antarctic Permafrost and Soils (ANTPAS) working group of the IPA and SCAR.

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Ian’s research has resulted in more than 47 peer-reviewed journal articles, seven book chapters and monographs, a book editorship, three published conference presentations, and in excess of 101 conference presentations, among other research outputs. According to citation statistics by Scopus, research from 46 of his publications has produced 1680 citations and an H score of 17 (https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=6505940682). His Google Scholar h-index is 17, with 2009 citations (https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=sd1z3-YAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=3).

Ian’s contribution to developing the capacity of young South African geomorphologists cannot be underestimated. His work in the Antarctic has produced numerous postgraduate students. Between 2012 and the end of 2018, his project on Landscape Processes in Antarctic Ecosystems produced 11 MSc and PhD degrees from Rhodes University and four MSc’s (whom he did not supervise) at other Universities. Many of his previous students now teach within geomorphology, or closely related fields, at institutions of higher learning, continuing with the tradition of geomorphological research and teaching in South Africa. Ian has also supervised or co-supervised more than 42 PhD and Masters students. Three of his ex-students are currently Full Professors, and another three are in academic Faculty positions. From these grandaunts, his influence extends through three successive generations of postgraduates now holding academic positions at universities that carry southern African geomorphology forward.