Jennifer Middleton, Ph.D.

Jennifer Middleton is a Lamont Assistant Research Professor in the Geochemistry Division of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. She is a lab-based and sea-going researcher who uses noble gas and trace isotope analyses to examine the biogeochemical cycling of iron, carbon, and other important elements through the biosphere, oceans, ice sheets, atmosphere, and solid Earth. Since arriving at Columbia University as a Lamont Postdoctoral Fellow in 2017, she has spent 4 months in the Pacific Southern Ocean collecting sediment cores aboard the JOIDES Resolution and seawater samples aboard the R/V Roger Revelle to investigate the region’s climate sensitivity and impact on global carbon cycling under modern conditions and over the past five million years.

Dr. Middleton's recent projects focus on the development of age constraints for deep-time sedimentary records of Earth’s climate history and the potential impact of hydrothermal iron emitted at submarine volcanic centers in stimulating plankton growth and the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean. Dr. Middleton also teaches Earth history and climate courses in Columbia University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and through the Columbia University Center for Justice. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University.