The University of Delaware will host the symposium “The Earth’s Carbon Cycle in the 21st Century” on Wednesday, April 18, in honor of UD alumna Susan Trumbore, who was selected to receive the Franklin Institute’s 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science.

Trumbore earned her bachelor’s degree in geology at UD in 1981 and directs the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. She will be honored with the Franklin Medal for her work helping to pioneer a technique to measure the levels of carbon in plants and soil.

The symposium, set for 8 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Trabant University Center Multipurpose Rooms, is free and open to the public. 

To register for the symposium, or submit to the call for posters, click here.

About the symposium

The “Earth’s Carbon Cycle in the 21st Century” symposium will be held in conjunction with the Franklin Institute’s Awards Week, which culminates in the Franklin Institute awards ceremony and dinner, at which gold medals will be bestowed upon Trumbore and her fellow laureates. 

At the symposium, five invited speakers will discuss carbon cycling and its effect on climate, ecosystems and energy:

• Susan Trumbore, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, “The Global Carbon Cycle, Radiocarbon and Climate”;
• Eric Davidson, University of Maryland, “Land-use Change and Soil Carbon Stocks: A Tale of Two Forests, Temperate and Tropical”;
• Wei-Jun Cai, UD College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, “Carbon Dioxide Fluxes in Coastal Oceans and Coastal Ocean Acidification”;
• Rodrigo Vargas, UD College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, “Ecological Forecasting: The Carbon Cycle in my Backyard, Delaware, and Beyond”; and
  
• Margaret Torn, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States.”

An open discussion will follow the speakers, as well as poster presentations by select registrants.

UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment and Department of Geological Sciences are hosting the symposium, with support from the Delaware Environmental Institute (DENIN) and the Franklin Institute. 

Read more about Susan Trumbore and her award at this UDaily story.