Stephanie Jenouvrier

Stéphanie Jenouvrier is a French population ecologist with a research interest in Antarctic seabirds as indicators of climate change. She is currently a senior scientist leading the Forecasting the Long term Ecological and Demographic impacts of Global Environmental changes (FLEDGE) lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). She is most known for her work with emperor penguin population forecasting models, where she reported massive declines for the species by the end of the century based on several factors including sea-ice loss.

Education Jenouvrier obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Ecology from the University of Paris-Sud in 1999. During her time there, Jenouvrier studied brown bears in Pyrénées National Park, France, where she worked on a statistical monitoring and tracking program for the population. Jenouvrier then went on to complete a postdoctoral project at the Center for Biological Studies of Chizé

Career and impact Jenouvrier's research uses models to understand and predict seabird population dynamics amidst a changing climate, as seabirds are known to be good indicator species of climate change. Her subsequent work revealed that Emperor penguins will be quasi-extinct by the year 2100 if warming as a result of carbon emissions continues on its current predicted path. This is due to loss in sea ice, which is important for emperor penguin breeding, molting, and feeding practices. Jenouvrier's study on emperor penguins has been highlighted in several articles and a short film. It was one of the driving forces in updating the species' to "threatened status" under the Endangered Species Act in 2022.

Jenouvrier is also a part of Project SENSEI (Sentinels of the Sea Ice), a French effort to understand and educate about the impacts of changing sea ice through indicator species.

Selected works

Jenouvrier S, Eparvier A., Sen B., Ventura F., Che-Castaldo C., Holland M., Garnier J., Barbraud C., Delord K., Trathan T. 2025. Living with Uncertainty: Using Multi-Model Large Ensembles to Assess Emperor Penguin Extinction Risk for the IUCN Red List. Biological Conservation, 11037. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111037. Jenouvrier S., Aubry L., Barbraud C., Weimerskirch H. and Caswell H. 2018a. Interacting effects of unobserved heterogeneity and individual stochasticity in the life history of the Southern fulmar. Journal of Animal Ecology, 87(1): 212–222. Jenouvrier S., Peron C. and Weimerskirch H. 2015. Extreme climate events and individual heterogeneity shape life history traits and population dynamics. Ecological Monographs, 85: 605-624. Jenouvrier S., Weimerskirch H., Barbraud C., Park Y-H. and Cazelles B. 2005. Evidence of a shift in cyclicity of Antarctic seabird dynamics link to climate. Proceedings of the Royal Society, 272: 887–895.