Rate My Professor Elizabeth Thomas

Elizabeth K. Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University at Buffalo, specializing in paleoclimatology and organic and stable isotope biogeochemistry. She earned her PhD in Geological Sciences from Brown University in 2014. Thomas employs organic geochemical and stable isotopic proxies derived from marine, lake, and loess sediments to reconstruct past precipitation, temperature, and ecological changes during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Her work integrates climate models to elucidate the mechanisms driving these changes, aiming to inform understandings of contemporary global climate shifts. Her research spans critical regions including the Arctic, areas influenced by the Asian monsoon, and the Great Lakes region, with a particular emphasis on lake effect snow in Western New York.

Thomas leads field expeditions in the Arctic to investigate ice sheet dynamics and vegetation responses to warming and altered precipitation. She spearheaded the development of the UB Carbon Reduction Challenge, a project-based course partnering with the university's Office of Sustainability, where students collaborate with local organizations to measure and mitigate carbon emissions. In 2021, she received the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, valued at $799,869, to study ancient climate histories in the Great Lakes region through sediment analysis and to expand her educational initiatives, including paid internships with minority-owned businesses. Her influential publications include "Recent warming reverses long-term Arctic cooling" published in Science in 2009, "A global database of Holocene paleotemperature records" in Scientific Data in 2020, and "Rate of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet will exceed Holocene values this century" in Nature in 2020. With over 3,400 citations on Google Scholar, her contributions have significantly advanced paleoclimate research, including global databases such as the Iso2k database. Thomas teaches courses such as ERT 102: Climate Change, ERT 308: Introduction to Geochemistry, and ERT 453/553: Quaternary Dating and Paleoclimate.