Climate, Atmosphere, and Oceans

Photo of Marianna Linz

Marianna Linz

Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Marianna Linz explores a broad range of topics within climate dynamics, including the distribution of trace gases in the stratosphere, temperature extremes in the troposphere, and heat transport in the ocean.... Read more about Marianna Linz

HUCE 433G
Photo of Frank Keutsch

Frank Keutsch

Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science
Area Chair for Environmental Science and Engineering
Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; Affiliated Faculty Member of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Research in the Keutsch group is aimed at improving our understanding of photochemical oxidation processes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that produce tropospheric ozone (O3) and are central to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. O3 and aerosol affect human health and climate, and uncertainties in the radiative effects of aerosol comprise the largest uncertainties in current estimates of anthropogenic forcing of climate. Our scientific approach builds on enabling new field observations of key VOC oxidation intermediates (OVOCs) via instrumentation and method development.

Laboratory Manager/Administrator: Lori Reck

CCB/Link Building 268
p: (617) 495-1878
Photo of Elsie Sunderland

Elsie Sunderland

Fred Kavli Professor of Environmental Chemistry
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Research in the Sunderland Lab focuses on how biogeochemical processes affect the fate, transport and food web bioaccumulation of trace metals and organic chemicals. Her group develops and applies models at a variety of scales ranging from ecosystems and ocean basins (e.g., the Gulf of Maine, the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans) to global applications to characterize how changes in climate and emissions affect human and ecological health, and the potential impacts of regulatory activities. Her group also makes key measurements of chemical concentrations and reaction rates in environmental samples (natural waters, sediments, and aquatic biota) and humans (hair, blood) to parameterize and evaluate environmental models.

Ongoing research is elucidating the biogeochemical cycling of compounds with contrasting physical and chemical properties that can be used to obtain insights into the varying exposure pathways and environmental lifetimes for industrial chemicals. The innovation in this work is to quantitatively analyze the entire exposure pathway for these compounds to identify their properties in air and water (e.g., stability in the atmosphere, photodegradation in water, environmental partitioning behavior) that enhance chemical persistence and ultimate accumulation in biota.

Assistant: Robert Stanhope

Pierce Hall 127
p: (617) 496-0858
Scot Martin

Scot Martin

Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry

Scot T. Martin is the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry at Harvard University, with appointments in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences & the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

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29 Oxford Street, Pierce Hall, Room 126
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Office Location: Pierce Hall 122
p: 617-495-7620 f: 617-496-1471
Jerry Mitrovica

Jerry Mitrovica

Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science

Jerry X. Mitrovica joined Harvard in 2009 as a Professor of Geophysics.His work focuses on the Earth's response to external and internal forcings that have time scales ranging from seconds to billions of years. He has written extensively on topics ranging from the connection of mantle convective flow to the geological record, the rotational stability of the Earth and other terrestrial planets, ice age geodynamics, and the geodetic and geophysical signatures of ice sheet melting in our progressively warming world. Sea-level change has served as the major theme of these studies, with particular emphasis on critical events in ice age climate and on the sea-level fingerprints of modern polar ice sheet collapse.

Mitrovica is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University. He is a former Director of the Earth Systems Evolution Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and J. Tuzo Wilson Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, where he also received his Ph.D. degree. He is the recipient of the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America, the W.S Jardetsky Medal from Columbia University, the A.E.H. Love Medal from the European Geosciences Union and the Rutherford Memorial Medal from the Royal Society of Canada. He is also a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America, as well as a past Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Research Group Coordinator:

... Read more about Jerry Mitrovica

Office location: Geological Museum 203B
Mailing address: EPS, 20 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
p: 617-496-2732, f: 617-495-8839
Daniel Schrag

Daniel Schrag

Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program

 

Daniel P. Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, and Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program.

Schrag studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth history. He is particularly interested in how information on climate change from the geologic past can lead to better understanding of anthropogenic climate change in the future. In addition to his work on geochemistry and climatology, Schrag studies energy technology and policy, including carbon capture and storage and low-carbon synthetic fuels.

From 2009-2017, Schrag served on  President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  Among various honors, he is the recipient of the James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union and a MacArthur Fellowship. Schrag earned a B.S. in geology and geophysics and political science from Yale University and his Ph.D. in geology from the University of California at Berkeley. He came to Harvard in 1997 after teaching at Princeton.

Geochemical oceanography, paleoclimatology, stable isotope geochemistry.

Assistant: Cayla Jett

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Room 433F
26 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
p: (617) 495-7676, f: (617) 496-0425
Photo of Eli Tziperman

Eli Tziperman

Pamela and Vasco McCoy, Jr. Professor of Oceanography and Applied Physics

Eli Tziperman joined Harvard as a Professor of oceanography and applied physics in 2003.  His research interests include large-scale climate and ocean dynamics, including El Nino, thermohaline circulation, abrupt climate change, glacial cycles and equable climates; advanced methods of ocean data assimilation. 

He teaches courses in oceanography, climate and applied math.  Before Joining Harvard he was a post doc to a prof, 1988-2003, at the Weizmann institute of science.  He holds a BA in physics and mathematics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a PhD in physical oceanography from the joint program of MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Large scale climate and ocean dynamics, including El Nino, thermohaline circulation, abrupt climate change, glacial cycles and equable climates.

Research Group Coordinator: Priya Putta

... Read more about Eli Tziperman

EPS
20 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138

Office location - Geological Museum 456
p: (617) 384-8381, f: (617) 496-7411
Steven Wofsy

Steven Wofsy

Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science

Chemistry of the atmosphere on global and regional scales, including stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry.

EPS
20 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138

Office location - Geological Museum 453
p: (617) 495-4566, f: (617) 495-2768
p.huybers

Peter Huybers

Department Chair
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering

Peter Huybers is a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University whose research interests lie in developing a better understanding of the climate system and its implications for society.  On-going research involves interactions between volcanism and glaciation, trends and predictability of extreme temperatures, and implication of climate change for food production.

Huybers received a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1996 and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004.

Research Group Coordinator: 

Office location: Geological Museum 457
Mailing address: 20 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138
p: (617) 495-4811, f: (617) 384-7396
Daniel Jacob

Daniel Jacob

Vasco McCoy Family Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Engineering

Air pollution, atmospheric transport, regional and global atmospheric chemistry, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, climate change.

Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138

Office location - Pierce Hall 110C
p: 617-495-1794, f: 617-495-4551
j.anderson

James Anderson

Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry

Gas-phase kinetics of free radicals; catalytic processes in the atmosphere controlling global change of ozone; high-altitude experiments from balloons and aircraft; development of laser systems for stratospheric and tropospheric studies; development of high-altitude, long-duration unmanned aircraft for studies of global change.

Anderson Group/CCB
Harvard University
12 Oxford Street,
Link Bldg.
Cambridge, MA 01238
p: 617-495-5922

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