Ann Pearson

Ann Pearson is the Murray and Martha Ross Professor of Environmental Sciences at Harvard University and current chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS). Her research in the area of organic geochemistry is focused on applications of analytical chemistry, isotope geochemistry, and molecular biology to biochemical oceanography and Earth history. The “how, when, and why” of microbial processes yield insight about environmental conditions on Earth today, in the past, and about potential human impacts on our future. Her recent work has focused on the global carbon and nitrogen cycles, paleo-temperatures, and paleo-CO2 records.

Pearson completed her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio in 1992. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography in 2000.

Pearson has been on the Harvard faculty since 2001.