Ana Ravelo

Ana Ravelo is a paleoceanographer known for her research on tropical oceans. She is a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz and was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2012.[1]

Ana Christina Ravelo
Alma materColumbia University
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of California Santa Cruz
ThesisReconstructing the tropical Atlantic seasonal thermocline using planktonic foraminifera (1991)

Early life

Ravelo grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles where she enjoyed hiking, skiing and other outdoor activities. Science and math captured her academic interests, but she was also interested in cultural differences and stories about race which she investigated in books by Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, and Amy Tan. Her father was a cardiologist in Cuba and subsequently practiced in Brooklyn, and her mother was trained as a pharmacist while in the Philippines.[2]

Education and career

Ravelo attended public schools until high school when she moved to a private school in Pasena. She went to Stanford University for her undergraduate education where she double-majored in anthropology and geology which she combined into studies on paleoanthropology. During her time at Stanford she became interested in oceanography, especially paleoceanography, which attracted her because it combines physics, math, chemistry, and biology.[2] After finishing her undergraduate work in 1994, Ravelo moved to Columbia University where she received an M.A., M.Phil, and a Ph.D. in geological sciences.[3][4] She spent time as a postdoctoral investigator at Princeton University where she modeled changes in ocean conditions. In 1991, Ravelo moved to the University of California Santa Cruz where she is a professor in the ocean sciences department.[3]

From 2005 until 2011, Ravelo served as the director of the Santa Cruz branch of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, a University of California research initiative designed to foster interdisciplinary research.[5]

Research

Ravelo's research centers on the tropical ocean, especially the Pacific ocean. Her Ph.D. research examined different species of foraminifera and used their geochemistry to reconstruct changes in temperature over geologic eras.[6] Ravelo uses a combination of collection of samples from the field, such as from sites in the Bering Sea where she led a 2009 expedition to collect sediment samples that allow her to examine changes in the region's temperatures over the last 4.5 million years.[5] She also uses climate modeling to examine past changes in the ocean's hydrography,[7] nitrogen cycling,[8] and carbon dioxide concentrations.[9] In the Pacific Ocean, Ravelo's research revealed a shift to El Niño-like conditions in the Pliocene, 4.5 to 3 million years ago.[10][11] In 2021, Ravelo's research revealed a history of recurrent hypoxia in the Bering Sea, which results from productivity fueled by iron from continental shelves.[12][13][14]

Selected publications

Awards and honors

Personal life

Ravelo has three children.[2]

References
  1. "Ravelo". Honors Program.
  2. "How a daughter of immigrants became a leader in ocean and climate science – Sally Ride Science".
  3. "Department Faculty". oceansci.ucsc.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  4. Ravelo, Ana Christina (1991). Reconstructing the tropical Atlantic seasonal thermocline using planktonic foraminifera (Thesis). OCLC 81392176.
  5. "Q&A with Ana Christina Ravelo, PhD '91" (PDF). Columbia University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-09-06. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
  6. Ravelo, A. C.; Fairbanks, R. G. (1992). "Oxygen Isotopic Composition of Multiple Species of Planktonic Foraminifera: Recorders of the Modern Photic Zone Temperature Gradient". Paleoceanography. 7 (6): 815–831. Bibcode:1992PalOc...7..815R. doi:10.1029/92PA02092. ISSN 1944-9186.
  7. Ravelo, A. C.; Fairbanks, R. G.; Philander, S. G. H. (1990). "Reconstructing tropical Atlantic hydrography using planktontic foraminifera and an ocean model". Paleoceanography. 5 (3): 409–431. Bibcode:1990PalOc...5..409R. doi:10.1029/PA005i003p00409. ISSN 1944-9186.
  8. Ren, Haojia; Sigman, Daniel M.; Martínez-García, Alfredo; Anderson, Robert F.; Chen, Min-Te; Ravelo, Ana Christina; Straub, Marietta; Wong, George T. F.; Haug, Gerald H. (2017). "Impact of glacial/interglacial sea level change on the ocean nitrogen cycle". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 114 (33): E6759–E6766. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114E6759R. doi:10.1073/pnas.1701315114. ISSN 0027-8424. JSTOR 26487067. PMC 5565415. PMID 28760968.
  9. Pagani, Mark; Liu, Zhonghui; LaRiviere, Jonathan; Ravelo, Ana Christina (January 2010). "High Earth-system climate sensitivity determined from Pliocene carbon dioxide concentrations". Nature Geoscience. 3 (1): 27–30. Bibcode:2010NatGe...3...27P. doi:10.1038/ngeo724. ISSN 1752-0908.
  10. Wara, M. W.; Ravelo, Ana Christina; Delaney, Margaret L. (29 July 2005). "Permanent El Nino-Like Conditions During the Pliocene Warm Period". Science. 309 (5735): 758–761. doi:10.1126/science.1112596. JSTOR 3842403. PMID 15976271. S2CID 37042990.
  11. Marshall, Michael (May 25, 2011). "Pacific shouldn't amplify climate change". New Scientist. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
  12. Knudson, Karla P.; Ravelo, Ana Christina; Aiello, Ivano W.; Knudson, Christina P.; Drake, Michelle K.; Sakamoto, Tatsuhiko (2021). "Causes and timing of recurring subarctic Pacific hypoxia". Science Advances. 7 (23): eabg2906. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abg2906. ISSN 2375-2548. PMID 34078607.
  13. Rosane, Olivia (2021-06-03). "Dead Zones Have Recurred in the North Pacific for the Last 1.2 Million Years". EcoWatch. Archived from the original on 2021-06-03. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  14. Dockrill, Peter. "'Dead Zones' Have Been Haunting The Ocean For Longer Than Anyone Ever Knew". ScienceAlert. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  15. Stephens, Tim (October 12, 2020). "Ocean scientist Christina Ravelo honored as a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences". UC Santa Cruz News. Archived from the original on 2020-10-13. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  16. "California Academy of Sciences welcomes new Fellows, bestows annual awards". California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
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