Rate My Professor Jean Lynch-Stieglit

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz is Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a position she assumed in September 2024. She holds B.S. degrees in Physics and Geology from Duke University, an M.A. in Geological Sciences from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Columbia University, where her thesis focused on controls on the isotopic composition of oceanic carbon and applications to paleoceanographic reconstruction. Before joining Georgia Tech in 2004 as an associate professor, she served as a faculty member in Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory from 1996 to 2003, following a postdoctoral fellowship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. At Georgia Tech, she has held roles including Associate Chair of the School from 2015 to 2022 and ADVANCE Professor for the College of Sciences from 2022 to 2023. In 2023, she was selected as a Jefferson Science Fellow by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, serving in the U.S. Department of State's Office of Global Change to apply her expertise in oceanic carbon cycles and climate policy.

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz's research centers on reconstructing changes in ocean circulation and climate over the last 100,000 years, combining geochemical proxies such as carbon isotopes in benthic foraminifera with modern oceanographic models to identify vulnerabilities in the ocean-climate system. Her work addresses topics including Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during glacial periods, air-sea exchange influences on oceanic carbon isotopes, and El Niño-like patterns in ice age Pacific sea surface temperatures. Key publications include 'Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during the Last Glacial Maximum' (Science, 2007), 'El Nino-like pattern in ice age tropical Pacific sea surface temperature' (Science, 2002), 'The influence of air-sea exchange on the isotopic composition of oceanic carbon: Observations and modeling' (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 1995), and 'The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and Abrupt Climate Change' (Annual Review of Marine Science, 2017). She has received numerous honors, including Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2019), Cesare Emiliani Lecturer from the American Geophysical Union (2018), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2015), and Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow from the National Academy of Sciences (1998). Additionally, she served as Editor of Earth and Planetary Science Letters from 2012 to 2015.