Rate My Professor Claudine Stirling

Professor Claudine Stirling holds the position of Professor in the Department of Geology within the Division of Sciences at the University of Otago, where she also serves as Director of the Community Trust of Otago Centre for Trace Element Analysis. She earned her PhD in 1996 from the Australian National University, focusing on high-precision U-series dating of corals from Western Australia and implications for last interglacial sea-levels, and her BSc (Hons) from Victoria University of Wellington. Following postdoctoral appointments at the University of Michigan and ETH Zürich, she joined the University of Otago in 2006, initially in the Department of Chemistry before transferring to the Department of Geology. She was promoted to full professor in 2018. Her career has been marked by advancements in analytical techniques, including the establishment of world-class clean laboratories at Otago for trace element analysis using MC-ICPMS.

Professor Stirling's research centers on isotope geochemistry, employing trace element and isotope systems to elucidate biogeochemical processes and dynamic ocean-atmosphere interactions across timescales, from super-greenhouse warming in deep time to Quaternary glacial-interglacial changes and contemporary anthropogenic influences. Her studies span high-latitude Southern Ocean to equatorial Pacific regions, emphasizing stable isotope tracers of bioactive metals such as iron, zinc, and cadmium, and redox-sensitive metals like uranium and molybdenum. Key publications include 'Uranium isotope evidence for two episodes of deoxygenation during Oceanic Anoxic Event 2' (PNAS, 2018), 'Keeping Time with Earth's Heaviest Element' (Science, 2012), 'High-resolution records of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2' (Earth & Planetary Science Letters, 2019), 'Marine biogeochemical cycling of cadmium and cadmium isotopes' (Earth & Planetary Science Letters, 2019), and 'High-precision zinc isotopic measurement' (Geostandards & Geoanalytical Research, 2020). Her discovery of natural uranium isotope variations has become widely adopted across geochemical sciences. In 2024, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi for developing and applying novel trace element isotope techniques. She serves on the Editorial Board of Reviews of Geophysics and has significantly enhanced New Zealand's geochemistry research landscape through collaborations and capability building at Otago.