URI GSO Associate Professor of Oceanography Rebecca Robinson has been named a Consortium for Ocean Leadership Distinguished Lecturer for 2012-2013. The Distinguished Lecturer Series is organized by the U.S. Science Support Program – with funding from the National Science Foundation – to bring scientists performing cutting edge research with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program to students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and to the geoscience community in general. Dr. Robinson is one of six scientists nationwide to receive this honor. The title of her lectures will be “Expanding Pleistocene Oxygen Minimum Zones: Implications for Climate Forecasts.”

Rebecca’s research focuses on the grand chemical cycles of nitrogen and carbon in the ocean. Nitrogen, as an essential nutirent with the potential to limit biological productivity in large regions of the oceans, is a key determinant of ocean and atmospheric biogeochemistry.  Her lab at URI GSO seeks to recreate the distributions of various fixed nitrogen species and understand the role of feedbacks within the oceanic nitrogen and carbon cycles on geologic timescales.

Photo: Dr. Robinson examines a sediment core while at sea.