Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences

Understanding how the earth's climatic system, particularly the ocean, adjusts itself to perturbation on various timescales drives most aspects of my research. I focus particularly on reconstructing ocean surface temperatures and ecosystems in the past, linking these to global climate changes and greenhouse gas control. My team and I do these studies using fieldwork, sea-going expeditions, and laboratory work using organic biomarkers and stable isotopes in carbonate microfossils. We are especially interested in the climate of the Neogene, which saw the near-complete deglaciation of Antarctica from ~17.5 to 14 Million years ago, and progressively cooled and aridified into the great northern hemisphere-based ice ages of the past ~2.7 Million years.