University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Ros is Professor of Biogeochemistry, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, having received her PhD from Cambridge University in 1995. She is fascinated by the jigsaw of complex interactions between the evolution of mineralising organisms, ocean chemistry, atmospheric composition and Earth’s climate. In her research she extracts chemical signatures from fossil shells of marine micro-organisms to use for establishing ocean conditions (eg pH, temperature and salinity) and their record of climate from hundreds to millions of years ago. Her current research aims at understanding the physiological response of phytoplankton to changes in the carbon cycle in the past to help in predicting future responses. In 2008 Ros received the European Geosciences Union’s Outstanding Young Scientist award and in 2010 the American Geophysical Union’s James B. Macelwane Award for significant contributions to the geophysical sciences by an outstanding young scientist.