October 23, 2008

New UCSB Faculty Member Receives Subaru's ‘Outstanding Woman in Science' Award from the Geological Society of America

Gail Gallessich

New faculty member Lorraine Lisiecki, in the Department of Earth Science at UC Santa Barbara, recently received the Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award from the Geological Society of America.

The award is based on the scientific impact of the research she did for her Ph.D. dissertation at Brown University, and includes $2,500.

The award citation notes that Lisiecki produced a "ground-breaking doctoral thesis that had, and continues to have, a wide-ranging impact on the climate sciences."

Lisiecki developed a set of software packages that allowed her to compare data from around the world that pertain to the study of changes in climate through time. According to the citation, she used these tools to develop a record of global ice volume and temperature over the last 5.3 million years that has quickly become the "gold standard" for this type of work, not only within the paleoceanographic community but within the international ice core community, and the terrestrial paleoclimate community as well.

The citation, written by Lisieki's postdoctoral advisor Maureen Raymo of Boston University, states, "In summary, Lorraine's unique combination of scientific skills, combined with her drive and single-minded dedication to her long-term scientific goals, resulted in one of the best, most interesting and most influential doctoral theses that I have ever seen."

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