Dr Sarah Greene

CENTA Director, University of Birmingham

I grew up in the concrete jungle of New York City, yet somehow developed an early fascination with the natural world, geology, and the Earth system. I completed my PhD at the University of Southern California in palaeontology and geochemistry, then retrained in Earth system modelling as a postdoc at the University of Bristol. I joined the University of Birmingham as a NERC Independent Research Fellow in 2017.

Research interests

I am primarily an Earth system modeller and geochemist, studying climate change and the biogeochemical cycling of carbon between the atmosphere, the ocean, the biosphere, and the solid Earth – particularly in the geologic past. My research interests include:

Mass extinctions
Large igneous province volcanism
Carbon cycle feedbacks
Greenhouse climates and past global warming events
Palaeo-ocean acidification
Carbonate geochemistry
Co-evolution of life and the carbon cycle

I also enjoy collaborating on interdisciplinary projects outside of my wheelhouse.

Current Projects and Collaborations

I am Principal Investigator for the NERC-NSF Large Grant C-FORCE (Carbon-cycle Feedbacks from Response to Carbon Emissions), reconstructing the global carbon cycle response to massive volcanic carbon emissions 56 million years ago. Other ongoing projects include work on the Early Eocene supergreenhouse climate, the Devonian mass extinction, and climate and the rise of the dinosaurs. I am also an active member of the Pal(a)eoScientometrics research collective.

Find out more here – Paperslink