Galen McKinley is Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. She is an ocean, carbon cycle and climate scientist. Her research focuses on the physical, chemical and ecological drivers of the global ocean’s uptake of anthropogenic carbon. Regional and global ocean and climate models, and data science techniques applied to large community-compiled datasets are her primary tools.
Professor McKinley earned a BS in Civil Engineering from Rice University (1995) and a PhD in Climate Physics and Chemistry from MIT (2002). Her postdoctoral work was at Instituto Nacional de Ecologia in Mexico and Princeton University. From 2004-2017, she served on the faculty in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at University of Wisconsin – Madison. Selected honors include the 2020 Ocean Science Voyager award from the American Geophysical Union, 2012-2013 Defense Science Study Group, and the Class of 1955 Teaching Award at UW-Madison in 2011.
In addition to research and teaching at Columbia University and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Professor McKinley frequently contributes to national and international scientific coordination, and to scientific advising for the US federal government. She also enjoys opportunities to share climate and ocean science with the general public.