Ann Pearson

Ann Pearson is the Murray and Martha Ross Professor of Environmental Sciences at Harvard University and current chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Her research in the area of organic geochemistry is focused on applications of analytical chemistry, isotope geochemistry, and molecular biology to biochemical oceanography and Earth history. 
Education.
After growing up on the San Juan Islands, Pearson completed her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio in 1992. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1993–1994. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography with a dissertation titled "Biogeochemical applications of compound-specific radiocarbon analysis" for which she received MIT's Rossby Award.
Career and research.
Pearson has been on the Harvard faculty since 2001. She was the first woman in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department to be awarded tenure.
Pearson's recent work has focused on the global carbon and nitrogen cycles, paleo-temperatures, and paleo-CO2 records. In 2010, Pearson described her research as "...the 'you are what you eat' philosophy for microbes" which allows her to use microorganisms to assess modern and ancient ecosystems. Notable research topics include investigations into chemoautotrophic processes using compound specific 14C-based methods, genomic evidence of sterol biosynthesis retained by planctomycetes, and examinations of modern environments to reveal insights into environmental conditions in the past. In 2018, Pearson's research showed that increases in the size of eukaryotic phytoplankton increased the amount of carbon sequestered from the atmosphere. 
External links.
Ann Pearson publications indexed by Google Scholar
 