🧊 I submitted my PhD thesis in August 2026 at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, supervised by Dr Alexander D. Fraser, Assoc. Prof. Stuart P. Corney, Dr Rachel L. Tilling, and Prof. Petra Heil. My research sits across two linked strands: Antarctic snow depth and sea-ice thickness from satellite altimetry 🛰️ (CryoSat-2, ICESat-2, Envisat, and near-coincident CRYO2ICE pairs), and Antarctic Circumpolar Current standing meanders 🌊 and their imprint on Southern Ocean surface properties.

Alongside the PhD I build reproducible, FAIR-aligned data pipelines 🐍 for the Australian Antarctic Division and the Integrated Marine Observing System. I am now based in Hobart and relocating to Perth, Western Australia, and I am open to postdoctoral and applied data-science roles in polar and ocean science.

• 🎓Google Scholar | 🆔ORCID 0000-0001-6794-7571 | 🔗LinkedIn
• Or just ✉️email me about altimetry, sea ice, or Southern Ocean data.

• Antarctic sea-ice variability, trends, and climate drivers
• Snow depth and freeboard retrieval from radar and laser altimetry
• Uncertainty attribution in altimetry-derived sea-ice thickness
• Cryosphere-ocean interactions and Southern Ocean circulation
• Reproducible scientific workflows and open, FAIR-aligned polar data

* Corresponding author. Full list on Google Scholar.

Peer-reviewed

• Liu, X.*, Fraser, A.D., Tilling, R.L., Heil, P. & Corney, S.P. (2026). Robust Regional Contrast but Penetration-Sensitive Snow Thickness over Sea Ice from Multi-Winter Antarctic CRYO2ICE Observations. Earth and Space Science, 13(8), e2026EA005247. DOI
  
• Liu, X.*, Yang, C. & Chen, Y. (2026). Standing Meanders of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current: Evidence for Ridge-Controlled Eddy Saturation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 131(2), e2025JC023527. DOI
  
• Liu, X.*, Meyer, A. & Chapman, C.C. (2024). Characteristics and Trends of the Campbell Plateau Meander in the Southern Ocean: 1993-2020. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 129(2), e2023JC019876. DOI

Under review

• Ma, X., Shi, J.*, Holbrook, N.J., Liu, X., Zhong, R., Mandal, M., Zhou, T., Hu, X. & Yang, Q. (2026). Australian East Coast Lows Remotely Intensify the Amundsen Sea Low during the Austral Cool Season. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Liu, X.*, Fraser, A.D., Corney, S.P., Tilling, R.L. & Heil, P. (2026). Bulk Sea-Ice Density and Ku-Band Penetration Co-Dominate the Uncertainty in Antarctic Sea-Ice Thickness From Coupled Laser–Radar Altimetry Retrieval. Remote Sensing of Environment. Preprint
  
• Liu, X.*, Tilling, R.L., Corney, S.P., Fraser, A.D. & Heil, P. (2026). Antarctic Sea-Ice Freeboard from Envisat and CryoSat-2: Attributing Inter-Product Spread to Snow Assumptions and Radar-Retrieval Baselines. The Cryosphere. Preprint
  

• 📂East Antarctic Monitoring Program (EAMP), Australian Antarctic Division (04.2026 - 08.2026)
  

  • Compiled and quality-controlled the 2025 emperor-penguin colony inventory (71 colonies) with habitat classification and South-Polar-Stereographic mapping
  • Consolidated RSV Nuyina and Aurora Australis underway ocean and atmosphere observations into long-format Parquet archives with provenance and QC documentation

• 📂AMSA Marine Traffic Data Uplift, IMOS / AODN (09.2025 - 12.2025)
  

  • QA/QC and scalable ingestion of monthly vessel-tracking releases into analysis-ready Parquet and Zarr
  • H3 hexagonal spatial indexing for gridded, model-ready aggregation feeding State of the Environment reporting

• 📂Antarctic Snow and Sea-Ice Thickness from Satellite Altimetry (12.2022 - Present)
  

  • PhD research retrieving freeboard, snow depth, and sea-ice thickness from CryoSat-2, ICESat-2, Envisat, and CRYO2ICE
  • Gridded circumpolar products and uncertainty budgets built on the NCI Gadi HPC in Python (xarray, cartopy)

• 🧩Early-Career Group Reviewer, IPCC AR7 WGI
  

  • Contributing review comments on the Working Group I assessment cycle

• 🧩Contributing Author, SCAR Antarctica InSync Science Plan (Theme 2) (2025)
  

  • "Rapid Sea Ice Decline: Causes and Consequences" white paper, contributing satellite remote-sensing perspectives on snow depth, freeboard, and thickness

• 🧩Scientific Review Committee Member, IGARSS 2026
  

  • Reviewing cryosphere and ocean remote-sensing submissions under IEEE GRSS rubrics

• 🧩Co-Organiser, SCAR AntClimNow Eastern Hemisphere Monthly Talks (07.2025 - present)
  

  • Speaker identification, scheduling across time zones, hosting and chairing virtual seminars

Data and platforms: NCI Gadi HPC, AODN/IMOS, Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AADC), National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), ESA CryoSat-2 and Envisat archives, NASA ICESat-2

• Small Science Project Grant (Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP), 02.2026)
  • "Gridded Antarctic Snow and Sea-Ice Thickness from CRYO2ICE: A Pilot Community Product"
• Mertz Fellowship 2023 (Embassy of Switzerland in Australia & Swiss Polar Institute, 11.2023)
• AAPP Top-Up Scholarship (Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, 09.2022)
• Tasmania Graduate Research Scholarship (University of Tasmania, 09.2022)
• Roll of Excellence 2022 (College of Sciences and Engineering, University of Tasmania, 08.2022)
• Award for Excellent Graduates, Class of 2022 (Ocean University of China, 07.2022)
• Oceans and Cryosphere Prize (IMAS, University of Tasmania, 05.2022)
• ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes Honours Award 2021 (11.2021)

Mandarin Chinese (native) · English (fluent, language of work, study and research)