About the Study Leader 

Bess Ward, William J. Sinclair Professor of Geosciences and the High Meadows Environmental Institute

Ward obtained a degree in zoology with a focus in chemistry at Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography at the University of Washington, then held post doc and research scientist positions at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She spent nine years on the faculty of the Ocean Sciences Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (three years as department chair), before moving to the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University in 1998, where she was also Department Chair from 2006 to 2022. Her research relies on stable isotopes and molecular biology to study the nitrogen cycle in many regions of the world, including permanently ice-covered lakes in Antarctica, Chesapeake Bay, the Arabian Sea, the Eastern Tropical North and South Pacific, the North Atlantic, the Black Sea and the Cariaco Trench. She teaches oceanography at all levels and enjoys connecting ideas across disciplines and perspectives.