Mark Terry, PhD | The Royal Society (original) (raw)

Mark Terry, PhD is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; the Royal Canadian Geographical Society; and the Explorers Club.

After graduating from York University’s Glendon College in Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1980, he embarked on a 25-year career as a journalist and documentary filmmaker earning him the distinction of having made a documentary film on every continent on earth.

His science and nature films have made a significant impact on the policymakers of the United Nations. He continues this work today for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with a multilinear documentary film project of climate and sustainability research from around the world known as the Youth Climate Report.

His work with the UN and the world’s scientific community has been recognized on many fronts: in 2020, the UN honored him with a Sustainable Development Goals Action Award for his educational programs and workshops designed for the global community of youth. He has been decorated with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for international humanitarian service; he has been presented with the Stefansson Medal by The Explorers Club for documenting climate research in the polar regions; the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presented him the Gemini Humanitarian Award acknowledging a lifetime achievement of producing environmental documentary films. In 2022, he was knighted by the City of Vaughan in the Order of Vaughan for his contribution to documentary film research as an instrument of social change. In 2015, he was listed as one of Canada's Top 100 Greatest Explorers by Canadian Geographic Magazine.

He successfully defended his PhD dissertation on January 18, 2019, at York University in Toronto, Canada. His book on the subject, The Geo-Doc: Geomedia, Documentary Film, and Social Change, was released by Palgrave Macmillanone year later. In 2022, he published two books: one co-edited with Michael Hewson of Central Queensland University (Australia) entitled The Emerging Role of Geomedia in the Environmental Humanities for Lexington Books; the other is his second book for Palgrave Macmillan: Speaking Youth to Power: Influencing Climate Policy at the United Nations.

His latest documentary film, The Changing Face of Iceland, premiered at the UN climate summit, COP26, in November 2021 and has won 12 international film awards. It represents the third in his trilogy of films examining the impacts of climate change in the polar regions (the other two being The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning and The Polar Explorer). He is currently working as Contract Faculty and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University in Toronto, Canada.

He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Faculties of Arts and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. His sustainability work extends to the public sector where he serves as the Director of Social and Sustainable Development for the City of Vaughan.

His ongoing research project with the United Nations - the Youth Climate Report - is now in its 13th year. The interactive Geo-Doc can be found here: https://unfccc.int/topics/education-youth/resources/youth/youth-climate-report. His other ongoing research project training youth how to produce film reports for the UN is now in its fourth year and focuses on amplifying the voices of Indigenous youth around the world with documentary film. Both projects have been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

While in production on the documentary The Polar Explorer, Terry was on the top deck of the Canadian Coast Guard Icebreaker, Amundsen, when the ship was photographed from a helicopter for the back of the Canadian $50 bill. As a result, Terry was captured as the sole figure on the upper deck of the ship making him the only living person on Canadian money as of 2024.

For more information on Mark Terry please visit his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark\_Terry or his personal website: https://markjterry.com.
Phone: 4168995855

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