Gisela Winckler

Gisela Winckler is a Lamont Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory where she also serves as the Associate Director of the Geochemistry Division. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Heidelberg in 1998. She was a researcher at the International Atomic Energy Agency before joining Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in 2001.

Winckler has been a leader in paleoceanography and the interplay of climate change, carbon cycle and aerosols since 2003. As an environmental physicist and isotope geochemist she uses elemental and isotopic analyses (noble gases, U-Th series, cosmogenic and radiogenic isotopes) to unravel processes of climate and environmental change in the oceans and on continents, on timescales ranging from decades to tens of millions of years. Her research uses climate archives such as deep-sea sediments, lake sediments and polar ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland. Her reconstructions of past climates are key to understanding the climate system’s sensitivity to natural variability and anthropogenic perturbations.

Winckler has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, including in Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience, Science Advances and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Winckler is passionate about mentoring graduate students and postdocs, and a recent recipient of the LDEO Excellence in Mentoring Award. She teaches in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. She has served as the ‘Climate Scientist in Residence’ at Columbia’s Journalism School where she has been involved in developing innovative course material at the interface of journalism, climate science and art. She is deeply engaged in the JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) space. She served as the co-chair of the Lamont Diversity Equity and Inclusion Task Force, and currently co-teaches a seminar on Climate Change, Race and Environmental Justice. More details at wings.ldeo.columbia.edu.