Bridget S. Wade is a British micropalaeontologist who is a professor at the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Her research considers

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

climate change, which she investigates by studying preserved planktonic foraminifera. Wade was a guest on the 2020

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic each, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825, missing 1939–1942 because of the Second World War. The lectures present sci ...

Early life and education

Wade was an undergraduate student at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. She did an MSc in Micropalaeontology at UCL. She moved to the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

for her graduate studies where she studied stable isotope records as a means to understand

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...

climate change.

Research and career

After earning her doctorate, Wade was awarded a

Natural Environment Research Council The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. History NERC began in 1965 when several environmental (mainly geogr ...

(NERC) postdoctoral fellowship. Wade continued her scientific career in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, first at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

as a Lindemann Research Fellow and then as an Assistant and Associate Professor at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. Wade has taken part in the

Ocean Drilling Program The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) was a multinational effort to explore and study the composition and structure of the Earth's oceanic basins. ODP, which began in 1985, was the successor to the Deep Sea Drilling Project initiated in 1968 by th ...

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) was an international marine research program. The program used heavy drilling equipment mounted aboard ships to monitor and sample sub-seafloor environments. With this research, the IODP documented e ...

International Continental Scientific Drilling Program The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program is a multinational program to further and fund geosciences in the field of Continental Scientific Drilling. Scientific drilling is a critical tool in understanding of Earth processes and s ...

and the Tanzania Drilling Project. This research resulted in Wade making contributions to the field of palaeontology, including identifying that before the extinction of Eocene

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

foraminifera Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell biology), ectoplasm for catching food and ot ...

there was an increase in the production of surface water, which triggered the loss of algal photosymbionts. She created a high-resolution astrochronological framework to allow for the characterisation of fluctuations in ice volume (including their magnitude and frequency) and evaluation of their impact on the global carbon cycle. In 2013 Wade joined

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

as a Professor of Micropalaeontology.

Awards and honours

* 2005 Elected Chair of the

International Commission on Stratigraphy The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), sometimes referred to unofficially as the "International Stratigraphic Commission", is a daughter or major subcommittee grade scientific daughter organization that concerns itself with stratigra ...

Paleogene Planktonic Foraminifera Working Group * 2008

Palaeontological Association The Palaeontological Association (PalAss for short) is a charitable organisation based in the UK founded in 1957 for the promotion of the study of palaeontology and allied sciences. Publications The Association publishes two main journals: ' ...

Hodson Award * 2009

National Science Foundation CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER awards, presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors i ...

* 2011 Micropalaeontological Society Alan Higgins Award * Elected Fellow of the Paleontology Society * 2012

The Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

Wollaston Fund * 2013 Paleontology Society Charles Schuchert Award * 2016

European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling The European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) is a consortium of 14 European countries and Canada that was formed in 2003 to join the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) as a single member. ECORD is now part of the International ...

Distinguished Lecturer * 2020 Guest presenter on the

Selected publications

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wade, Bridget Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Paleontologists British women earth scientists British climatologists Alumni of the University of Leeds Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Texas A&M University faculty Rutgers University people