I am a Distinguished Professor of Paleobiology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I work on human impacts on ecosystems and the geologic record of past warm periods that help predict Earth’s response to future climate change.

DEGREES

My training includes a BS from UC Santa Cruz, a MS from the University of Arizona, a 1990 Ph.D. from Harvard University. I was a postdoc and research scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before joining Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2002. As well as my passion for teaching and research as a professor, I am Curator of the SIO Geological Collections—an archive of seafloor rocks, cores, and geological teaching materials. I also am the Academic Director of the UCSD Natural Reserve System and serve on the University-Wide Committee that manages the 42 sites in the whole reserve network.

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP

At SIO, I helped establish the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC) and the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology (SCMA), to link human affairs to Earth’s environmental history. I led two $3.4 million NSF-funded graduate training programs in global change and conservation and directed the Master of Advanced Study in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at SIO.

In research, I have participated in research cruises to the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean. Seven of these cruises were through the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)–a consortium of 31 nations to study Earth history through Scientific Ocean Drilling. I was the leader of two $8 million expeditions (Legs 171B and 342), each involving years of guiding drilling proposals through international review followed by recruitment of 30 scientists for shipboard research, two months at sea, and management of ship operations with drilling engineers. I helped write and edit the “2050 Science Framework” for this program that describes key research objectives between now and 2050.  In addition to my scientific efforts, I have also served as the academic director of the $7 million NSF-funded Science Support Office for IODP; this office provided IT-support, data archiving, proposal management and meeting organization for IODP.  In 2017, I co-led the “Empire Expedition” ”—a DFG-funded research cruise on the RV Meteor—to explore the marine record of the establishment of settled society around the Mediterranean Sea.

RESEARCH PROGRAMS

My latest research programs focus on marine conservation, human impacts on the oceans and ocean productivity and paleoclimatology.  As an outcome of the “EMPIRE expedition, I am working on the impact of climate change on fish populations in the last 10,000 years in the central and eastern Mediterranean.  This study compares fish populations from the early Holocene, when the Mediterranean was extensively oxygen-depleted (as expected for a future ocean) to the modern, largely oxic ocean. Another project is the history of marine fish and zooplankton communities and biological production in the open ocean over the last 5-7 million years based on the marine fish teeth. My lab is also investigating ocean productivity changes seen in the accumulation rate of marine barite. Recent studies have also included assessments of the mechanisms of formation and preservation of marine barite—an important ecosystem-level proxy for ocean biological production.