Mr. Vladimir Ryabinin
Executive Secretary, IOC and Assistant Director General of UNESCO
Dr. Ryabinin is the Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and Assistant Director-General of UNESCO. He is an oceanographer, climatologist, and marine engineer, and is the holder of a Senior Doctorate in Physical and Mathematical Sciences (Oceanography and Geophysics) from the Supreme Attestation Committee of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and has professional certifications as an Engineer-Oceanographer from the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Institute and as a Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences with the Supreme Attestation Committee (USSR).
He began his professional career in July 1978 first as a Postgraduate with the Hydrometcentre of Russia (Moscow) and later, as a Senior and Principal Researcher, he was involved in studies of the role of the ocean in climate under the USSR ocean research programme “Sections”. Dr. Ryabinin was one of the creators of the first Soviet technology for numerical weather prediction for medium ranges implemented in the mid-1980s. From July 1996 to September 1998, Dr. Ryabinin was the Head of the Laboratory for Marine Forecasting Research and Coordinator of national research on marine forecasting. In October 1998, Dr. Ryabinin was appointed Principal Scientist with the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Insular Coastal Dynamics (ICoD) and held the position until December 2000. Dr. Ryabinin joined, in January 2001, the International Ocean Institute (IOI) in Malta, initially as a Consultant, and later became its Executive Director.
From November 2001 until 2015, Dr. Ryabinin was a Senior Scientific Officer in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and a staff member of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), where he was responsible for the international coordination of climate research with a focus on the polar regions and cryosphere, the ocean, sea level, stratosphere, atmospheric chemistry and climate, and contribution of research into the creation of climate services.
Dr. Ryabinin has authored and/or co-authored roughly 100 articles and publications, including a monograph, mostly in the domains of oceanography, meteorology and climate. He was a lecturer at the Moscow State University and has participated in several research and offshore engineering projects including the International Polar Year 2007-2008. He has been a lead author of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO5, 2012), and an expert/member/chair in a number of international working groups, committees and research councils.