Karen Joy Heywood is a British Antarctic oceanographer and Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

followed by a PhD at the University of Southampton where her research investigated the heat budgets of mixed layers[2] and was supervised by Neil Wells [Wikidata].

Following her PhD, Heywood was a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University, working on eddies caused by flow around the Indian Ocean island of Aldabra.

During the 1990s Heywood was heavily involved in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment serving as Chief Scientist of the A23 WOCE hydrographic section from Antarctica to Brazil in 1995.

[8] She was also awarded the Challenger Medal for 2016 in recognition of her major contribution to physical oceanography both in the UK and worldwide; particularly for her contribution to understanding physical oceanographic processes in the Antarctic, for her work in applying novel techniques to understanding ocean processes and for her wider work in developing UK marine science, particularly within SCOR (Scientific Committee for Oceanographic Research).