EBME: Research Team Member

Paul Falkowski, Ph.D.
Professor
Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
and Department of Geology

 

Educational Background 

Degree

Institution Conferring

Field

Year

B.S.

City College of the City University of New York

Biology

1972

M.A.               

City College of the City University of New York          

Biology

l973

Ph.D.  

University of British Columbia  

Biology/Oceanography

1975

Professional Background 

Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Rhode Island                         

1975-76

Assistant Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory

1976-78

Associate Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory                                       

1978-80  

Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory (with tenure from 1984)

1980-1993

Visiting Research Scientist, National Institute for Basic Biology  (with Dr. Y. Fujita), Okazaki, Japan

1985 

Visiting Research Scientist, Dept. of Pure and Applied Biology, Imperial College of Science and Technology (with Dr. J. Barber), London                                 

1985

Visiting Lecturer in summer courses at Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology

1984,1985,1989

Adjunct Senior Scientist, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute, Haifa

1985-

Head, Oceanographic Sciences Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory      

1987-1991

Visiting Lecturer, Marine Molecular Biology Course, UCLA                            

1989

Adjunct Full Professor, State University of New York, Stony Brook                

1990- 

Visiting Research Director, CNRS - Laboratoire de physique et chimie marines, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France (with Dr. A. Morel)                                 

1992

Senior Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory                                            

1993-98

Deputy Chairman for Environmental Research, Department of Applied Science             

1994-98

Head, Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Biology Program, Brookhaven National Laboratory

1995-98

Professor II, Department of Geology and Institute of Marine and Coastal Science, Rutgers University

1998-

                                          

Awards:

Medical Research Council Fellowship in Biophysics (1976 - declined)
Thomas Byrne Award - University of British Columbia (1997)
Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Maryland (1989)
Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Rhode Island (1991)
John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (1992-1993)
Cecil Green Distinguished Professor (1995-96)
Huntsman Medal  (1998)
Hutchinson Award (2000)
Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, Rutgers University (2000)

Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2001)

 

Recent Grants (partial listing):

NIH General Medicine (through 2001)

NASA Grant to develop biophysical protocols to estimate photosynthesis from in situ and remote platforms (through 2002)

U.S. Dept. of Energy, Basic Energy Science grant to work on the molecular bases of photoacclimation in unicellular algae (through 2002)

ONR - COBOP Investigator (through 2002)

NASA/JGOFS SMP Investigator (1992 to present)

NSF - SOFEX (2000 – 04)

NSF - Biocomplexity award (2000-05)

 

Current Research Interests

Biogeochemical cycles, photosynthesis, biological oceanography, molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics, physiological adaptation, plant physiology, evolution, mathematical modeling, symbiosis.

 

Member

American Geophysical Union, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, American Society of Plant Physiologists, American Phycological Society, The Oceanography Society

 

Service:  Executive Committee, NASA SeaWiFS Science Team Member, Joint Global Ocean Flux Study Working Group on Primary Productivity, Chairman, Brookhaven Symposium in Biology 1980: Primary Productivity in the Sea, Chairman, First Gordon Conference on Biochemistry and Genetic Engineering of Microalgal Products; August 1988; Associate Editor, Journal of Phycology (1984‑1986); Chairman, Brookhaven Symposium in Biology 1991:  Primary Productivity and Biogeochemical Cycles in the Sea; Chairman, DOE Workshop on Molecular Bases of Ecology, 1991; Member, Joint Global Ocean Flux Study Working Group on Optics; Member, National Research Council Review Committee of Office of Naval Research;  Alternative Fluorocarbon Environmental Assessment Study - Ecological Effects Advisory Committee; Guest Editor, Special Volume of Photosynthesis Research on Global Change (1992-1993);  Associate Editor: Global Change Biology (1995 to present); Co-Chair, NATO Advanced Study Institute on Molecular Ecology of Aquatic Microbes (1994); Chairman, DOE Initiative for Molecular Ecology Research - Convened Asilomar and Belmont Conferences; Chairman, NASA Ocean Primary Productivity Working  Group Member; Scientific Advisory Board - Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples (1994-1998); Guest Editor, Special Issue of Deep Sea Research (1994); Associate Editor, Limnology and Oceanography (1995-present); U.S. Coordinator for IPCC reports on ocean research;  Member  Joint Global Ocean Flux Study Primary Productivity Task Team; Member, Earth System Science and Applications Advisory Committee for NASA; United States Global Ocean Flux Study Steering Committee;  SeaWiFS Exectutive Science Team;  Member - Mars Architecture Planning Team,  Board of Reviewing Editors Science Magazine,  Associate Editor Photosynthesis Research,  US Member at Large - International Joint Global Ocean Flux Study,  Member NSF planning committee for Ecological Determinates of Ocean Carbon Cycle (EDOCC) and Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS); Member - Astrobiology Oversight Committee,  Member U.S. Carbon Cycle Scientific Steering Group; Co-chair,  IGBP Carbon Cycle Working Group.

Cruise Experience  (partial listing):

R/V Knorr       

Northwest Atlantic       

1977  

R/V Oceanus   

Northwest Atlantic       

1978  

R/V Endeavor (Chief Scientist)

Middle Atlantic Bight   

1989  

R/V A'talant

Subtropical Atlantic/ Northwest Africa upwelling region

1992

R/V Atlantis RSS Alvin

Juan de Fuca vent system

2000  

R/V Knorr

Black Sea

2001

 

Post-doctoral fellows: Dr. Assaf Sukenik, Dr. Zbigniew Kolber, Dr. Jonathan Zehr, Dr. Ronny Herzig, Dr. Julie LaRoche, Dr. Anne Mortain-Bertrand, Dr. Paul Kemp, Dr. Richard Greene, Dr. Jean-Michel Escoubas, Dr. Ilya Vasil'ev, Dr. John Berges, Dr. Michael Behrenfeld, Dr. Ondrej Prasil, Dr. Juan Vergara, Dr. Dion Durnford, Dr. Maxim Gorbunov, Dr. YiBu Chen, Dr. Ilana Berman-Frank, Dr. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez,  Dr. Yoram Gerchman,  Dr. Michal Koblizek, Dr. Yi Sun.

Students: Dr. Miguel Olaizola (Ph. D. Stony Brook 1993); Dr. Ajit Subramaniam (Ph. D. Stony Brook, 1996),  Sasha Tozzi, (Ph D. Rutgers, in progress),  Tuo Shi (Ph. D. Rutgers,  in progress),  Zoe Finkle (Ph. D. Rutgers, in progress).

 

Selected recent publications

·         Falkowski, P. G. 1997. Evolution of the nitrogen cycle and its influence on the biological sequestration of CO2 in the ocean, Nature, 327: 242-244.

·         Falkowski, PG, R.T. Barber and V. Smetacek. 1998. Biogeochemical controls and feedbacks on ocean primary production.  Science 281: 200-206.

·         Durford, D. and P.G.  Falkowski. 1997.  Redox regulation of nuclear gene expression. Photosyn.  Res.  53: 229-241.

·         Falkowski, P.G. and J. Raven. 1997.  Aquatic Photosynthesis, Blackwell, Oxford 375 pp.

·         Falkowski, P.G., R.M. Greene, and R.J. Geider.  1992.  Physiological limitations on phytoplankton productivity in the ocean.  Oceanography 5: 84-91.

·         Falkowski, P.G.  1992.  Molecular ecology of phytoplankton photosynthesis.  pp. 47-67 in Primary Productivity and Biogeochemical Cycles in the Sea, P. G. Falkowski and A.D. Woodhead, eds.  Plenum Press, New York.  

·         Escoubas, J-M, M. Lomas, J. LaRoche and P.G. Falkowski.  1995.   Light intensity regulates cab gene transcription via the redox state of the plastoquinone pool.  Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 92:  10237-10241.

·         Falkowski, P.G. 1994.  The role of phytoplankton photosynthesis in global biogeochemical cycles. Photosyn.  Res.  39: 235-258.

·         Behrenfeld, M.J, A. Bale, Z.S. Kolber, J. Aiken and Falkowski, P.G. 1996.  Confirmation of iron limitation of phytoplankton photosynthesis in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Nature 383: 508-511.

·         Falkowski, P. G. and others. 2000. The global carbon cycle: A test of our knowledge of the Earth as a system. Science 290: 291-294.

·         Laws, E .A., P.G.   Falkowski, W.O. Smith, Jr. and J.J. McCarthy.  2000.  Temperature effects on export production in the open ocean.  Global Biogeochem. Cycles 14:1231-1246.

·         Kolber, Z.S., C. van Dover, RA Niederman, and PG Falkowski. 2000. Bacterial photosynthesis in surface waters of the open ocean. Nature 407: 177-179.

·         Falkowski, PG.  2002.  The Ocean’s Invisible Forest. Scientific American 287:38-45.

EBME publications page