Rosalind E. M. Rickaby is Chair of Geology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. Ros has pioneered an interdisciplinary blend of biology and chemistry to determine the evolutionary interaction between the carbon cycle, ocean chemistry and climate, with the physiology and genetics of single celled mineralising phytoplankton. Ros has resolved how chalk-making coccolithophores respond to environmental change on a range of timescales: from human-induced ocean acidification to millions of years. She has turned on its head the perception that biology clouds interpretation of biomineral proxy records, by demonstrating that signals of palaeophysiology can be recovered.
Recently, Ros was awarded a Pushing the Frontiers Grant (NERC) and an ERC Advanced Award. She won the Outstanding Young Scientist Award (EGU), the Philip Leverhulme Prize, The Rosenstiel Medal, the James B. Macelwane Award (AGU), The Lyell Medal (London Geological Society) and a Wolfson Research Merit Award (Royal Society). She published a book with R. J. P. Williams entitled Evolution’s destiny.
Ros is a keen jogger, a football fan and mum of two boys.
Professional position
- Chair of Geology, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford
Subject groups
- Chemistry
Chemistry, inorganic
- Earth and environmental sciences
Chemical oceanography, Climate sciences, Geochemistry
- Biochemistry and molecular cell biology
Biochemistry and molecular biology, Cell biology (incl molecular cell biology)
- Organismal biology, evolution and ecology
Evolution, Plant sciences / botany
