The work that Prof. Kira Lawrence is doing today may help predict our planet’s climate in the near future. Lawrence, associate professor of geology, uses the remnants of organisms preserved in ocean sediments to reconstruct past changes in ocean surface temperature.

To perform her research, Lawrence uses ocean core samples provided by the International Ocean Discovery Program, an open access international marine research collaboration funded by the National Science Foundation and other international agencies. The program recently featured Lawrence’s work in a video about its global research initiative.