Climate warming and the rapidly disappearing Arctic sea ice cover have imposed new variability and likely directional change on the Arctic marine ecosystem. Improving our understanding of variability and change in the polar marine ecosystem in the face of a rapidly changing environment underpins my current research goals. My research has a particular focus on ice-associated primary producers in the Arctic marine ecosystem, which include sea ice algae, ice melt water (brackish) flora and phytoplankton. My most recent endeavours include: biological oceanographic studies of the central Canadian Arctic, Canadian Beaufort Sea (investigating phytoplankton bloom dynamics, sea ice bio-optics and ice algal productivity, photophysiology and taxonomy) and Hudson Bay (investigating freshwater and dissolved organic carbon input and export), and biophysical modeling of the ice algae ecosystem.