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Jonathan Payne
Dorrell William Kirby Professor, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Biology
Jonathan Payne is the Dorrell William Kirby Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University.
His research addresses the relationship between environmental change and biological evolution in the fossil record, focusing primarily on identifying the causes of mass extinction events and the processes that control subsequent recovery of the Earth system and its biosphere. He and his research group also use data from the rock record, as well as fossil and living species, to quantify long-term evolutionary trends and pinpoint their underlying controls, while placing the current biodiversity crisis in geological context. These research efforts integrate data and techniques from paleontology, sedimentary geology, isotope geochemistry, climate modeling, and conservation biology.
He currently teaches courses for undergraduate and graduate students on the Sixth Extinction (and the other five), Macroevolution, Carbonate Sedimentology and Rock Physics, and Quantitative Methods in Paleobiology. He is the 2015 recipient of the Allan V. Cox Medal from Stanford University for excellence in advising undergraduate research, as well as the Charles Schuchert Award from the Paleontological Society for excellence and promise in the science of paleontology. He is a fellow of both the Paleontological Society and the Geological Society of America.
He received his B.A. in Geosciences from Williams College. He then worked for two years as a high school teacher before returning to graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Penn State, he joined the Stanford faculty in the fall of 2005.
His research addresses the relationship between environmental change and biological evolution in the fossil record, focusing primarily on identifying the causes of mass extinction events and the processes that control subsequent recovery of the Earth system and its biosphere. He and his research group also use data from the rock record, as well as fossil and living species, to quantify long-term evolutionary trends and pinpoint their underlying controls, while placing the current biodiversity crisis in geological context. These research efforts integrate data and techniques from paleontology, sedimentary geology, isotope geochemistry, climate modeling, and conservation biology.
He currently teaches courses for undergraduate and graduate students on the Sixth Extinction (and the other five), Macroevolution, Carbonate Sedimentology and Rock Physics, and Quantitative Methods in Paleobiology. He is the 2015 recipient of the Allan V. Cox Medal from Stanford University for excellence in advising undergraduate research, as well as the Charles Schuchert Award from the Paleontological Society for excellence and promise in the science of paleontology. He is a fellow of both the Paleontological Society and the Geological Society of America.
He received his B.A. in Geosciences from Williams College. He then worked for two years as a high school teacher before returning to graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Penn State, he joined the Stanford faculty in the fall of 2005.
Education
Ph.D., Harvard University, Earth and Planetary Sciences (2005)
A.M., Harvard University, Earth and Planetary Sciences (2002)
B.A., Williams College, Geosciences (1997)
Contact
(650) 721-6723
Mail Code
2115