Professor Tannecia Stephenson, Head of the Department of Physics, UWI-Mona is one of six new professors at The UWI. The six were promoted to the regional university’s highest academic rank with effect from May 2021, following rigorous evaluation of the quality and quantity of their research, publications and other professional activities by internal and external assessors. FST congratulates Prof. Stephenson on her achievement! Read her profile below. 

Tannecia Stephenson

Professor Tannecia Stephenson is an Environmental Physicist and Head of the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology at The UWI, Mona Campus. Since 2005, she has been a Researcher and a key member of the Climate Studies Group at the Mona Campus. She is recognised internationally as a climate studies expert and currently serves as a contributor and lead author for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report.

Professor Stephenson holds a BSc (first-class honours) as well as a PhD in Physics, both from the Mona Campus. Her research areas of specialisation are environmental physics, climate variability, climate change and climate extremes. Professor Stephenson’s contribution as a young scientist and now Co-Director in the Climate Studies Group at the Mona Campus brought a significant understanding of climate change and its impact in the Caribbean region.

She already holds an impressive repertoire of research and publications which include contributions to 41 refereed journal articles; two book chapters, 19 conferences/scientific papers, two refereed proceedings/technical guidance, five short monographs and eleven technical reports, among others. She has published 10 times in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and is credited with over 1,350 citations.

Professor Stephenson joined the University’s teaching staff in 2006 as an Assistant Lecturer, working her way up to Senior Lecturer in 2015, before her promotion. In addition to teaching, she has contributed to programme development and is engaged in postgraduate supervision, honing the research and publication skills of students by allowing them to publish, and also organising a series of meetings on climate change and modelling.

Her past extra-departmental service includes co-chairing the Faculty of Science and Technology Conference; serving as a member of the Internal Quality Assurance Working Group and as a Faculty representative for The UWI Ethics Committee; as a representative to Academic Board among other roles. In addition to her UWI experience, Professor Stephenson spent one year as a Visiting Fellow in the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England from 2006-2007.

She has been named as a recipient of the 2021 UWI Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for Research Accomplishments and is also a 2018 recipient of the award for International Collaboration—also known as the Globalization Award. She earned a bronze Musgrave Medal in 2014 awarded by the Institute of Jamaica in recognition of achievement in art, science, and literature; The UWI Mona, Faculty of Science & Technology Best Publication Award in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2019; and she also received the Faculty’s Best Research Activity Award in 2016 and 2018.

In reviewing her work for consideration of the promotion to Professor, one of her external assessors commented, “Dr Stephenson is clearly producing multiple, tangible research products each year; an impressive and distinguished rate of sustained production. However, it is not the quantity of the publications alone which makes Dr Stephenson’s research distinguished. Overall, she has published in approximately 20 different peer-reviewed journals; (this) illustrates her ability to make research relevant to multiple audiences, increasing the footprint of the research, and adding to her reputation.”