Kristie A. Boering

University of California, Berkeley


Primary Section: 16, Geophysics
Secondary Section: 14, Chemistry
Membership Type:
Member (elected 2018)

Biosketch

Professor Kristie A. Boering is currently the Lieselotte and David Templeton Professor of Chemistry, with a joint appointment in the Departments of Chemistry and of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California at Berkeley. She received a B.A. in Chemistry with a Specialization in Earth Science from the University of California, San Diego, in 1985 and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Stanford University in 1992, followed by postdoctoral studies at Harvard University prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1998. Her research spans laboratory, modeling, and field studies to understand the isotopic composition of gases in the atmospheres of Earth and other planets – from the physical chemistry of isotope effects to making and using isotope measurements to understand the evolution of planetary atmospheres and the influence of human activities on Earth’s atmosphere and climate. She has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1987), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2000), and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2005), and was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.

Research Interests

The coupling of atmospheric chemistry and climate on Earth and other planets on timescales from months to billions of years is studied through aircraft, balloon, and ground-based observations, computer simulations, and laboratory experiments. Of particular interest are studies of photochemical isotope effects. These studies range from crossed beam laboratory experiments to stratospheric observations. Photochemistry and reaction dynamics experiments are aimed at understanding unusual isotope effects on the molecular scale. Global-scale field measurements and computer simulations are aimed at using stable isotopes as tracers of atmospheric chemistry and transport in today's atmosphere and of gas exchange between the atmosphere and biosphere on annual to millennial to billion year time scales from atmospheric, ice core, and rock measurements, respectively. Combined, these molecular and global scale data allow us to better understand and predict the effects of human activities on atmospheric composition, atmospheric circulation, air quality, and climate.

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