Margaret Torn
Margaret Torn, a senior scientist in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area (EESA), has been named by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) as a 2017 AGU Fellow.
Every year, the AGU Fellows program recognizes members who have made exceptional contributions to the Earth and space sciences. Vetted by a committee of AGU Fellows, honorees represent no more than 0.1 percent of AGU’s 60,000 members.
“This is a great honor from an organization and colleagues that I esteem,” Torn said. “It is especially nice to share the honor this year with fellow Berkeley Lab scientist Susan Hubbard.”
Torn is an ecologist and biogeochemist who studies the natural carbon cycle and human impacts on the carbon cycle through land use, energy use, and climate change. She leads EESA’s Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions Program Domain, which includes research on terrestrial ecosystems, climate, and land-atmosphere coupling.
She has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles on a range of subjects, including soil carbon cycling, effects of climate on ecosystems, ecological aspects of bioenergy production, and strategies for mitigating climate change.
“Berkeley has been a fantastic place to do interdisciplinary research in ecology and biogeochemistry—areas that grow more important to our understanding of the planet and society’s impact on it as time goes on,” Torn said.
Torn is also an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. She holds a PhD and MS in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley, and a BS in Conservation and Resource Studies from Berkeley.
The 2017 AGU Fellows will be honored on December 13th with a special presentation at the in New Orleans. Go here see a full list of this year’s honorees.