Rosalind Rickaby, University of Oxford, UK
2023 Science Innovation Award medallist
Ros Rickaby is a marine biogeochemist, currently the Chair of Geology at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, having been Professor of Biogeochemistry since 2010, on the dark side (of blue!), as well as mum to two boys. She received her PhD with Harry Elderfield from Cambridge University in 1995 and studied at Harvard for her post-doc with Dan Schrag before being appointed to a Lectureship in Oxford in 2002. Ros has won 20 years of continuous ERC funding, and been recognised by prestigious medals from the European Geosciences and American Geophysical Union, and Geological Society of London. She held a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society and was just last year appointed FRS.
Ros’ overarching theme is to use the past co-evolution of life, environmental chemistry, and Earth’s climate to inform predictions of future change. Ros has pioneered an interdisciplinary blend of biology and chemistry to define the evolving role of the mineralising phytoplankton, in driving climate. Her highest impact research has unravelled the interplay between their adaptation and the carbon cycle over timescales ranging from millions to 100s of years. She has turned on its head the common perception that biology clouds interpretation of biomineral proxy records, by demonstrating that signals of palaeophysiology can be recovered from those “complications”. Understanding the feedback between biology and climate requires investigation of both biological innovation and environmental change over Earth history. Ros’ distinctive approach is to read geological history from signals of adaptation within genes of modern organisms, which play out in the evolving affinity and kinetics of the expressed enzymes, or isotopic signals of adaptation that leave a footprint in fossils and biomolecules. Ros has authored over 120 papers and co-authored a book “Evolution’s Destiny: Co-evolving chemistry of the environment and life”.
Ros’ efficacy as a communicator has been recognised through numerous invited and keynote talks around the world including the Paul Gast Lecture of the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society. Dedicated to outreach, she published an essay for primary school age children entitled “Oceans on Earth” in “George and the Blue Moon” by Lucy Hawking. She has appeared in the award-winning documentary “Thin Ice”, a short video for the “Hay Levels” series, in a YouTube film “Adaptability” to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Phil. Trans Roy. Soc., and in an Audible audiobook “A Grown-up Guide to the Oceans”. Ros believes her greatest impact has been as an effective scientific mentor to brilliant young scientists with whom she has been so lucky to work. 18 of her 33 Masters students have gone on to PhDs; and 12 of the 20 graduates and 18 post-docs trained in Rickaby’s group now hold faculty positions in leading institutes around the world.