Dana Leviticus Royer is a geoscientist specializing in paleobotany at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

Education

Royer attended the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and received his PhD from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, studying under Leo Hickey and

Robert Berner Robert Arbuckle Berner (November 25, 1935 – January 10, 2015) was an American scientist known for his contributions to the modeling of the carbon cycle. He taught Geology and Geophysics from 1965 to 2007 at Yale University, where he latterly se ...

. He also studied with

David Beerling David John Beerling (born 21 June 1965) is the Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate change mitigation and Sorby Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (APS) at the University of Sheffield, UK. He ...

at the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

Academic career and research

Royer has made several contributions in the geosciences, including using leaf size and shape to reconstruct paleoclimates, using the stomatal distributions of plants to reconstruct ancient levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and doing extensive work on the correlation between atmospheric CO₂ and temperature over geologic timescales. He has been a Geological Society of America Fellow since 2011. He co-authored a paper in 2008 with famed climate scientist

James Hansen James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1942) is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in climatology, his 1 ...

and others that suggested humanity aim for 350 parts per million CO₂ in the atmosphere to avoid climate change that could threaten human civilization. This has been widely cited and was reported on by several media outlets.

Awards and honors

Geological Society of America - 2010 Donath Medal

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Royer, Dana Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American geologists University of Pennsylvania alumni Yale University alumni Wesleyan University faculty