University of Delaware professors Wei-Jun Cai and David Kirchman have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. 

AAAS Fellows are elected by their peers for important contributions to STEM. They represent scientists, engineers and innovators in areas ranging from research, teaching and technology, to administration, to excellence in communicating science to the public. 

This newest class of fellows includes 564 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines. 

Both Cai and Kirchman are on the faculty of the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment. 

Wei-Jun Cai

Cai, the Mary A. S. Lighthipe Chair of Earth, Ocean and Environment, was elected a AAAS Fellow in the field of atmospheric and hydrospheric sciences “for distinguished contributions for understanding the global carbon cycle and carbon dioxide fluxes in the coastal ocean.”

He has worked for more than 30 years on research topics relating to the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle. The stability of this cycle — the continual movement of carbon in and out of various reservoirs on Earth, including rocks and sediments, the ocean and living organisms, up to the atmosphere and back again — is critical for a stable climate. 

Cai’s research has taken him from his early work in the deep sea, where he used sensors called microelectrodes to analyze changes in sediment chemistry and calcium carbonate levels, to the nearshore “coastal ocean,” where he has been uncovering the looming danger of ocean acidification and its impacts on coastal waters of the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico.

Since Cai joined the UD faculty in 2013, he and his students have studied ocean acidification and carbonate chemistry locally, in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay. Farther afield, in the Arctic Ocean, he has observed and interpreted how dramatic climate changes, in particular massive sea-ice loss, play a critical role in air-sea carbon dioxide flux and ocean acidification.  

A prolific author, he has contributed more than 200 research articles to further understanding of these topics. 

His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

He is also a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, and the Geochemical Society/European Association of Geochemistry.

David Kirchman

Kirchman was elected a AAAS Fellow in the field of biological sciences “for outstanding contributions to marine biosciences, particularly microbial ecology and microbial oceanography.”

An internationally renowned expert on the microscopic organisms living in the ocean and their role in the carbon cycle, Kirchman has pursued research from Delaware Bay, to the Arctic and Antarctic, and the oceans in between.

His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, University of Delaware Research Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Office of Naval Research.

Kirchman, now a professor emeritus, joined the UD faculty as an assistant professor in January 1986 and achieved numerous academic honors and appointments prior to his retirement in 2020 — among them, he was named Maxwell P. and Mildred H. Harrington Professor of Marine Studies, associate dean of the College of Marine Studies (forerunner of the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment), and Francis Alison Professor, UD’s highest faculty honor.

During his UD career, Kirchman advised 23 graduate students and numerous undergraduates, including students from Lincoln University, the nation’s oldest historically Black college, as part of a longstanding summer research internship program. 

He has served as editor of multiple scientific journals and has written more than 300 publications, including Microbial Ecology of the Oceans, which has been referred to as “the bible” in the field, and a textbook, Processes in Microbial Ecology. His newest book, Dead Zones: The Loss of Oxygen from Rivers, Lakes, and the Oceans, was published by Oxford University Press last year.

Kirchman was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2008 and previously was named a Highly Cited Researcher. He also is a fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.

The 2021 AAAS Fellows will be featured in an upcoming issue of the journal Science. An induction ceremony will be held virtually on Feb. 19 as part of the AAAS annual meeting.