Newswise | July 20
Newswise — Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) today announced that Dr. Peter de Menocal has been named the eleventh President and Director of the Institution. De Menocal is a marine geologist and paleo-oceanographer who studies deep-sea sediments as archives of past climate change, illuminating centuries of climate history and ocean circulation patterns in the geological record and drawing connections to the human dimensions of climate change today.
De Menocal was the Thomas Alva Edison/Con Edison Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. De Menocal also served as Columbia’s Dean of Science for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences between 2016-2019, overseeing the University’s nine scientific departments. During his tenure as Dean of Science, he developed and executed on a strategic plan that helped double philanthropic support for the sciences, significantly increase success in winning large center and institute awards, and double faculty hiring rates for women and under-represented minorities in the natural sciences.
De Menocal has published more than 150 scientific papers over his decades-long career in oceanography. He is also the founding director of Columbia’s Center for Climate and Life, a team of more than 120 PhD scientists and other experts mobilizing use-inspired science to understand how climate impacts essential aspects of human life, including food security, water, shelter, and sustainable energy solutions. Under de Menocal’s leadership, the Center pioneered collaborations with the private sector to inform science-based solutions.
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