Laura Haynes

Assistant Professor of Earth Science on the Mary Clark Rockefeller Chair
Person standing smiling in a lab with scientific equipment in the background.

Laura Haynes is a geochemist who investigates climate and ocean change throughout Earth’s history. She primarily does this by studying small marine protists called foraminifera. These ubiquitous creatures- found from the Hudson River to the most remote regions of the open ocean- make hard shells out of calcium carbonate and are widely preserved in the fossil record. Her current projects include investigating ocean circulation and carbon cycling during warm periods of the geologic past and characterizing the modern distribution of foraminifera in the Hudson River Estuary. Her courses explore the past, present, and future of our planet’s biogeochemical systems.

BA, Pomona College; MA, MPhil, PhD, Columbia University in the City of New York
At Vassar since 2020

Contact

845-437-7703
Ely Hall
Box 229

Courses

ESCI 153 The Fluid Earth: Oceans, Atmosphere, and the Climate System
ESCI 325 Mass Extinctions
ESCI-277 Biogeochemistry

Grants, Fellowships, Honors, Awards

Vassar Professor Awarded Climate Research Grant
Laura Haynes, Assistant Professor of Earth Science on the Mary Clark Rockefeller Chair, will lead a comprehensive initiative to explore this question as a recipient of a $480,415 research grant from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

Professors of Earth Science acquire grant for SEM microscope and EDS spectrometer
Professors of Earth Science Laura Haynes, Kirsten Menking, and Jeffrey Walker received a National Science Foundation Earth Sciences Instrumentation and Facilities (EAR/IF) grant to acquire a Tabletop Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometer (EDS).

In the Media

Carter Mucha ‘23 (left) and Elise Poniatowski ‘23 analyze tiny fossils from the Pacific Ocean floor in a lab in the Bridge for Laboratory Science

Assistant Professor of Earth Science Laura Haynes and three students are spending the summer analyzing tiny fossils Haynes collected from the floor of the South Pacific. Their study of the Earth’s ecosystem more than 50 million years ago can shed some light on climate change in the future.

Photos

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