Professor
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Affiliations:
Institute of Marine Sciences, Ocean Sciences
Earth & Marine Science Building
Room C308
University of California, Santa Cruz
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
831-459-1437
apaytan@ucsc.edu
Biography
I was born and raised in Israel, and after two years of mandatory military service I traveled to India and Nepal and hiked the Himalayas for another two years. I obtained my B.S. double major in Biology and Geology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Realizing the importance of science education to society, I pursued a M.S. degree in science education at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. I developed a curriculum in field geology for high school students, which was implemented successfully, and then pursued another M.S. degree, this time in oceanography, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. My thesis was on oxygen isotope exchange between water and phosphate via biological cycling. In 1989 I moved to San Diego to take part in the Ph.D. program at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. My thesis was on marine barite as a recorder of oceanic chemistry, productivity, and circulation. I stayed in San Diego (UCSD) for a post doc, this time producing a high resolution sea water S isotope curve for the past 120 Ma. In the summer of 1999, I moved to Stanford, where I worked for 8 years as a professor in the department of Geological and Environmental Sciences. Currently I am a professor in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Sciences and affiliated with the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz and the department of Ocean Sciences.
Research
Biogeochemistry, Chemical Oceanography, Paleoceanography, Paleoclimatology, Environmental Chemistry
My principal research interests lie in the fields of biogeochemistry, chemical oceanography, and paleoceanography. The goal of my research is to use the chemical and isotopic records enclosed in wide range of earth materials to study present and past biogeochemical processes. This research spans a wide range of temporal (seasons to millions of years) and spatial (molecular to global) scales. An over-arching aspiration of this research is to understand the processes and feedbacks operating in the Earth System and how they relate to global changes in climate and tectonics. In addition, I am interested in natural and anthropogenically induced perturbations that affect biogeochemical processes and their impact on humans and the environment. I am also engaged in STEM education and public outreach to providing professional development opportunities to students of all ages and expand science literacy.