Peter Raymond appointed Oastler Professor of Biogeochemistry

Peter Raymond, who has done field-leading research on the chemistry and ecology of inland waters, has been appointed the Oastler Professor of Biogeochemistry, effective immediately.

He is a member of the faculty at Yale School of the Environment (YSE). He also has an appointment with the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Raymond received his Ph.D. in Marine Science from the College of William and Mary in 1999. After spending three years as a postdoctoral scientist at the Marine Biological Lab and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, he was appointed to a tenure-track position in 2002 at the Yale School of the Environment, before he was promoted to full professor in 2010.

During his career, Raymond has become an internationally known expert in the earth, aquatic, and marine science communities, and a global leader in producing new understandings of the world’s inland waters and their role in the dynamics of the planet. His work has been praised for its societal relevance and scientific importance, and the quality and impact of his scholarship have placed him among the most influential scientists in the fields of biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology today.

His research focuses specifically on the chemistry and ecology of inland waters. This includes research on the exchange of greenhouse gases between inland waters and the atmosphere, controls on the transport of terrestrial elements to inland and coastal waters, the metabolism of aquatic ecosystems, and how storms and droughts impact aquatic ecology. He also uses radiocarbon measurements to explore the age and turnover of carbon in aquatic ecosystems.

In 2005, Raymond received the Cronin Award from the Estuarine Research Federation, an honor given to an estuarine scientist who shows great promise early in his or her career. A year later, he was recognized with a prestigious CAREER award for Faculty Early Career Development from the National Science Foundation. In 2016, he received a Fulbright Scholarship and, a year later, he was inducted as a member of the CT Academy of Science and Engineering. He became a fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2017 and has been named as a Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Web of Science Top 1%) between 2020 to 2023. Collectively his publications, including in the highest profile science journals, have been cited more than 29,000 times and have captured the attention of scientists, engineers, and natural resource managers interested in linkages between the Earth’s carbon cycle and anthropogenic global change.

His service to the community extends from the local to the global. He served as president of his town’s Land Trust, and was study manager and lead author for the Connecticut Academy of Sciences and Engineering Report on “Methods to Measure Phosphorus and Make Future Projections.” He was lead author of the technical input report to the 2013 U.S. National Climate Assessment and contributing author to IPCC AR5, and served as the editor-in-chief of Global Biogeochemical Cycles from 2017 to 2020. He is currently serving on the advisory board for the American Journal of Science, is on the Verra Enhanced Mineral Weathering Advisory Group, the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Science and Marine Science Sections Committee of Visitors, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Long Island South Study Ocean and Coastal Acidification Working group, and the Carbon Direct: Evaluating Advanced Mineral Weathering group. He is also co-leading the Global Carbon Projects global methane effort, and contributing to the Global Carbon Projects RECCAP2.

At Yale, Raymond serves on the University Instrumentation Committee, the Core Facilities Task Force, the YSE Title IX Committee, and the Yale Committee on Natural Lands. He is the director of the Yale Analytical and Stable Isotope Center. He also serves on the senior leadership team as the senior associate dean of research at YSE, the Director of Doctoral Studies, as well as the chair of the Climate Change Learning Community and the head of the YSE Climate Initiative.

Raymond has also served as advisor to 13 postdoctoral associates, 19 research masters students, and nine doctoral students. Additionally, he contributes significantly to the teaching needs of YSE. He teaches the required doctoral student seminar, as well as a core course for the school’s Climate Change specialization. He often teaches an additional watershed cycles elective course and a climate change seminar course.

Since arriving at Yale, he has served as lead PI on grants totaling over $10 million, and has been co-PI or a sub-awardee of an additional approximately $7 million. Raymond is currently leading a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-supported study that explores promising methods to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change. This project, which is part of the DOE’s Energy Earthshot Initiative, recently received $5,000,000 in funding.