Paul Falkowski

Who is Paul Falkowski?

Paul G. Falkowski is an American biological oceanographer in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His research work focuses on phytoplankton and primary production, and his wider interests include evolution, paleoecology, photosynthesis, biogeochemical cycles and astrobiology.

Born in New York City in 1951, Falkowski was educated at the City College of New York, where he received his BSc. and MSc. degrees. He completed his doctoral thesis in biology and biophysics at the University of British Columbia in 1975. After postdoctoral research at the University of Rhode Island, he moved to the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1976 to join its newly formed oceanography department, and in 1998 he moved to Rutgers University. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1992, and was appointed as Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor at the University of British Columbia in 1996. He has been elected to a number of learned societies including the American Geophysical Union, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He has also received a number of awards including the Huntsman Award, the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award, the European Geosciences Union Vernadsky Medal and the ECI Prize.