On July 1st, 2009, Maya Tolstoy, Joerg Schaefer and Gisela Wickler joined the faculty of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.  We welcome them and wish them well as the new academic year gets underway.

Associate Professor Maya Tolstoy received her Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1994. She came to Columbia University in 1996 for a Post-Docotoral Fellowship at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, after which she joined the Observatory's research staff. Her research focuses on mid-ocean ridge processes and understanding seafloor earthquakes, volcanism and hydrothermal systems, with particular emphasis on the interdisciplinary applications of geophysical data to better understanding mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal, geological, geochemical and biological processes. Professor Tolstoy lives in New York City with her 6-year-old son, Jason.

Adjunct Associate Professors Joerg Schaefer and Gisela Winckler came together to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory as Post-Doctoral Fellows in 2001 and both joined the Observatory's research staff upon completion of their fellowships in 2003. Professor Schaefer received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) with a dissertaion on reconstruction of landscape evolution and continental paleoglaciations using in-situ cosmogenic nuclides. He now heads the Cosmogenic Dating Group at Lamont, which applies Professor Schaefer's research interests include: application of isotope physics on environmental processes; mass spectrometry; dynamics of earth surface processes and their interaction with climate in general. terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides as chronometers and tracers in the Earth Sciences. Professor Winckler received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Heidelberg in 1998. Her research interests focus on climate change on Milankovitch to decadal timescales, paleoceanography, and the study of large-scale processes controlling global cycling of biogeochemical and physical tracers in the ocean. She is the P.I. for the rock, sediment, and ice sample line of the Multi-Purpose Noble Gas lab at Lamont. Professors Schaefer and Winckler live in New York City with their two daughters, 5 1/2-year-old Lia, and 18-month-old Yana.