Biosketch
Daniel M. Sigman is Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He earned a BS in Geology with Distinction from Stanford University in 1991 and a PhD in Marine Geology and Geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography in 1997. In 1998-1999, he was Harry Hess Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. In 2000, he joined the Department of Geosciences as Assistant Professor, was promoted to Professor in 2006, and was appointed the Dusenbury Professor in 2009. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a Geochemical Fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry. Honors include election to Phi Beta Kappa, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a Joint Oceanographic Institutions Schlanger Ocean Drilling Program Fellowship, the American Geophysical Union’s Macelwane Medal, the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Science Innovation Award (Heinz Lowenstam Medal) of the European Association of Geochemistry, and Princeton University’s Graduate Mentoring Award.
Research Interests
Sigman studies the global cycles of biologically active elements, particularly nitrogen and carbon, with a focus on the ocean. He has pioneered the development and application of methods of nitrogen stable isotope analysis to characterize the rates and sensitivities of the modern nitrogen cycle and to reconstruct the history of Earth’s environmental conditions. Areas of focus include the role of the ocean in the changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide content that have occurred in step with ice age cycles, the feedbacks that have regulated the ocean’s biologically available nitrogen reservoir over Earth history, the sensitivity of ocean oxygenation to climate, the history of marine and terrestrial ecosystem structure, and the evolution of marine endosymbiosis.
Membership Type
Member
Election Year
2026
Primary Section
Section 15: Geology
Secondary Section
Section 63: Environmental Sciences and Ecology