Margaret Torn is an ecologist at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
known for her research on carbon cycling, especially with respect to the interactions between soils and the atmosphere.
Education and career
Torn grew up in Marin county and worked in the family's food business, the Torn Ranch, where they handled nuts and dried fruits. She started college at the
College of Marin before transferring to
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
She earned a B.S. (1984), an M.S. (1990), and a Ph.D. (1994) from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
From 1994 until 1998, Torn was a postdoctoral fellow at University of California Irvine and Stanford University. In 1998, she joined the Earth Sciences Division at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
, and was promoted to senior scientist in 2013. Beginning in 2018, she is also an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2015 she received an honorary doctorate from the
University of Zurich.
In 2017, Torn was named a fellow of the
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's act ...
who cited her as follows:
Research
Torn's research combines observational data and experimental manipulations to examine the impact of changing climate conditions on the carbon cycle, with a focus on the interactions between soils and atmosphere. Torn has experimentally warmed soils and then measured the impact of changing conditions on gas fluxes from the soils.
She works on the factors controlling the release of
greenhouse gases from the tundra in the north slope of Alaska, how climate change impacts the severity of forest fires, the carbon sequestered in fungi found in soils, and the decomposition of
black carbon using archived soil samples from Russia. One theme in her research is assessing the factors that govern the persistence of organic carbon in soil.
Selected publications
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Awards and honors
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Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2003)
*Fellow, American Geophysical Union (2017)
*Berkeley Lab Director's award for exception achievement in science (2017)
References
External links
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*, October 13, 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torn, Margaret
Fellows of the American Geophysical Union
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory people
American climatologists
Soil scientists
Women ecologists
Biogeochemists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people