Faculty

Richard Allen

Class of 1954 Professor & Director of Berkeley Seismological Laboratory

Regional seismic structure and dynamics, mantle upwelling processes. Earthquake rupture mechanisms. Seismic hazard mitigation including earthquake early warning systems.

Walter Alvarez

Professor of the Graduate School

Stratigraphy and Earth history, tectonics and structural geology, stratigraphy of pelagic limestones.

Please note that Prof. Álvarez is active in research, but not in teaching, and does not accept new graduate students.

Jill F. Banfield

Professor

I am a Professor in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Science and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (see contact information below). I also have an appointment in the geochemistry group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. My primary research interests are in geomicrobiology and environmental microbiology. My group studies how microorganisms shape, and are shaped by, their natural environments. My research group studies microbial communities, primarily using cultivation-independent approaches such as genomics (metagenomics) and community proteomics. We work on...

James Bishop

Professor

Degrees: B.Sc. (hon) Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, University of British Columbia; Sc.D. in Marine Chemistry, MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography.

Path to Berkeley: Columbia University, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, both in New York; University of Victoria, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, BC, Canada; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Berkeley. I joined the EPS faculty in 2006. I am a Faculty Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National...

Kristie A. Boering

Professor & the Lieselotte and David Templeton Professor of Chemistry

The coupling of atmospheric chemistry and climate on Earth and other planets on time scales ranging from months to billions of years is studied through observations from aircraft and ground-based platforms, 2D and 3D computer simulations, and laboratory experiments. Of particular interest are studies of photochemical isotope effects on the molecular scale through crossed molecular beam laboratory experiments and up to the global scale through observations in Earth's stratosphere. This insight is extended to the early Earth and other planets through laboratory investigations of...

William Boos

Associate Professor

My group’s research focuses on large-scale climate dynamics—we work to understand how atmospheric circulations, ocean interactions, radiative transfer, and land surface processes control regional and global climate. Some of our research centers on monsoons, which are continental-scale atmospheric circulations that deliver water to billions of people in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and northern Australia; monsoon winds also constitute a major component of Earth’s global atmospheric circulation. We also study extreme weather and climate phenomena, seeking to understand how fluid dynamics and...

Bruce Buffett

Professor

Dynamics and evolution of planetary interiors, including mantle convection, plate tectonics, and planetary dynamos. Physical modeling of gas hydrates and consequences for climate change.

Roland Bürgmann

Professor
I am a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. I head the Active Tectonics group at UC Berkeley.

Eugene Chiang

Professor of EPS & Astronomy

B.S. (Physics), 1995, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. (Astronomy), 2000, California Institute of Technology

Ronald Cohen

Professor of EPS & Chemistry

Cohen's research combines satellite, in situ and laboratory observations of nitrogen oxides aimed at understanding the role chemical reactions have in Earth’s climate, in producing unhealthy levels of ozone and fine particles and in the exchange of nitrogen oxides with ecosystems. Cohen also studies the chemistry of evaporation/condensation with an eye toward understanding both cloud formation and the long-term record of water isotopes recorded in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. In his newest research project, he is leading an effort to build analytical instruments and...