Sybil Putnam Seitzinger
Dr. Sybil Seitzinger is the Executive Director of Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions after serving jobs at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Rutgers/NOAA Cooperative Marine Education and Research Program, Rutgers University, and International Geosphere-Biosphere Program. She is considred an authority on biogeochemical cycles in the coastal oceans. Her research focuses on present and future human impacts (e.g., food production/consumption, energy production, changes in the hydrological cycle) on elemental cycles that affect global coastal ecosystems. Her work on the fluxes of nitrogen from terrestrial watersheds, rivers and the atmosphere to the coastal ocean, and the transformation and fate of nitrogen in marine ecosystems is widely used in guiding policy decisions on reducing the effects of eutrophication globally. She has held the positions of President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, Director of NOAA's Cooperation Marine Education and Research Program at Rutgers University, and Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program in Sweden. In 2005 she was awarded the NOAA Administrators Gold Medal for international leadership in the development and application of cutting-edge biogeochemical science to the global-scale assessment of excessive nitrogen loading in coastal waters. She holds a PhD in Biological Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island; in 2016 she received an honorary PhD from Utrecht University, Netherlands. As the current Executive Director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions she leads a four university collaboration that is developing leading climate solutions which are used by decision makers to develop effective mitigation and adaptation policies and actions.