Milla Rautio

Dr. Milla Rautio is a Professor in the Department of Fundamental Sciences at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) where she holds a Canada Research Chair in in Boreal and Polar Aquatic Ecology. She obtained a PhD in Hydrobiology from University of Helsinki, Finland, in 2001 and did her postdoc at Université Laval, followed by an appointment as an ArcticNet (Theme 2: Terrestrial Eastern Canadian Arctic) Science Coordinator in the first years of the network’s existence. She then worked as an Academy Research fellow at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She was appointed to a faculty position at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi in 2011. Guided by hear passion for the North, Dr. Rautio has oriented her research so that it takes place in the Arctic or in winter. Her research focuses on (zoo)plankton ecology, trophic relationships, land-lake coupling, lipids, fatty acids, stable isotopes, paleolimnology, pigments and winter limnology. She works on lakes in the Canadian Subarctic (Northern Quebec), Arctic (Cambridge Bay) and High Arctic (Resolute, Ward Hunt). She also conducts research on boreal lakes (Saguenay) in winter. Her research contributes to the IASC program Terrestrial Multidisciplinary distributed Observatories for the Study of Arctic Connections (T-MOSAiC) allowing her to collaborate with many groups nationally and internationally and to place her findings in a broad circumpolar context. Dr. Rautio have served as a member in the board of trustees of Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, an Arctic research station in Northern Finland, and as a member in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Environmental Effects Assessment Panel. She is a former associate director of Center for Northern Studies (Centre d’études nordigues, CEN). Working with the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP), she played an early role in making the guidelines for monitoring of Arctic aquatic biodiversity. She knows northern research and emerging issues also through her role as a member in the evaluation committees of Canadian Northern Trust and NSERC Northern Supplement Grants. Dr. Rautio is an Associate editor of Arctic Science and sits on the editorial boards of Freshwater Biology and Journal of Plankton Research. She is responsible for the Thematic Section on Aquatic Ecosystems in the Scientific Committee of Osmoz, the new Quebec water research consortium. She is strongly dedicated to training of students and also to knowledge exchange with northern communities.