Axel Timmermann conducted his PhD research at the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany and received his PhD in Meteorology in 1999 from the University of Hamburg. After 2 years as a postdoc in the Netherlands and 3 years as research team leader at the IfM-GEOMAR/University of Kiel, Germany he moved to the University of Hawaii to work first as an associate professor and then from 2009-2016 as a full tenured professor at the International Pacific Research Center and the Department of Oceanography. In January 2017 Dr. Timmermann became the Director of the new IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University, where he also holds a Distinguished Professorship. In 2008 Axel Timmermann received the prestigious Rosenstiel Award in Oceanographic Science for his fundamental contributions to ocean science. In 2015 he was awarded the University of Hawai’i Regents’ Medal for Research Excellence and in the same year he also became a Fellow of the American Geophysical. In April 2017 Prof. Timmermann received the Milankovic Medal from the European Geosciences in 2017 for his contributions to paleoclimate research. He has published over 190 peer-reviewed articles on subjects ranging from Quark-Gluon Plasma, relativistic hydrodynamics, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, glacial cycles, abrupt climate change, climate prediction, human migration, bio-optics and dynamical systems’ theory. Axel was listed in 2018~2020 as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics. For his contributions to communicate climate research to the general public, Prof. Timmermann was awarded the “Scientist of the Year” award by the Korean Science Journalist Association.