Steven L. Goldstein

Professor Steven L. Goldstein is department chair in the Earth and Environmental Science Department. He has lectured for the Columbia College Core Curriculum course "Frontiers of Science" and currently co-teaches a course in DEES called The Solid Earth.

Goldstein is also the lead principal investigator of the Isotope Geochemistry Lab at Lamont Doherty Earth Science Observatory. Current projects range from studies of magmatic processes to chemical oceanography, from the history of the early Earth to recent climate changes. Most studies utilize the products of natural radioactive decay in rocks and waters, as process tracers and to determine absolute ages. Routinely used isotopic techniques include Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, Th-U-Pb, Lu-Hf, Li isotopes, and intermediate products of U-decay.

In addition to his research and work at Columbia, Goldstein has also served on several editorial boards of respected publications including Chemical Geology, Earth and Planetary Science Letters and the Journal of Geophysics Research-Solid Earth. Currently, Goldstein is editor-in-chief of Chemical Geology. He also serves on several committees including the Harry H. Hess Medal Committee, American Geophysical Union, GERM (Geochemical Earth Reference Model), National Terrestrial Sample Repository and many more. 

Prior to his work at Columbia, Professor Steven Goldstein was a staff scientist at the Max-Planck Institute fur Chemie, Department of Geochemistry in Mainz, Germany from 1985-1996. He also held the position of research assistant in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge in England from 1984-1985.