Mora Named Distinguished Alumna for UW, Madison

Chemistry Deputy Division Leader Claudia Mora

Deputy Division Leader Claudia Mora Named Distinguished Alumna for the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Chemistry Deputy Division Leader Claudia Mora has been honored as a Distinguished Alumnus for the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her award citation is “For innovative research in paleoclimatology and leadership in Earth Sciences,” and among other accomplishments she is a recent past-president of the Geological Society of America (GSA). The University of Wisconsin-Madison has fielded eight Geological Society of America Presidents over its 130 year history, more than any other university. She began her three-year term in 2016.

Mora says of the honor, “Graduate school was an extremely formative time for me, and the life and academic lessons I learned at UW were fundamental to my later achievements. Receiving this award felt a bit like a triumphant return to the mothership after a long journey of exploration. I was welcomed by old friends and some impossibly young students, and (being in Wisconsin, with geoscientists) quickly offered a cold local beverage. It just felt great to be home.”

Mora completed her PhD in 1988. After UW, she taught one year at the University of Texas-El Paso before moving to the University of Tennessee where she was the first woman on the faculty in geology. In 18 years, she rose from Assistant Professor to Carden Distinguished Professor and Department Head. At Tennessee, she built a stable isotope research group and laboratory, initially to study metamorphic fluid flow, but her interests soon expanded to isotope proxy records of paleoclimate. Her pioneering papers reached across disciplines to develop the first soil carbonate proxy record of Paleozoic atmospheric CO₂ levels and a new paleo-hurricane proxy, based on the oxygen isotope compositions of wood cellulose from tree rings, extending the record of hurricane occurrences along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to more than 400 years ago.

In 2007, Mora moved to Los Alamos National Lab where she was Group Leader of Earth Systems Observations and now is Deputy Division Leader of the Chemistry Division. Outside of LANL, Mora has held many professional leadership roles including the National Research Council Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, the National Academy of Sciences National Committees on Soil Science and Geology, the National Science Foundation Geosciences Advisory Committee, and the UW-Madison Geosciences Board of Visitors. As GSA President, she enthusiastically promoted strong science, GSA journals, public service, and the careers of young scientists. GSA was founded in 1888 as a professional society with the mission to advance geoscience research and discovery, service to society, stewardship of Earth, and the geosciences profession. It has about 23,000 members in more than 100 countries and publishes the top-ranked journal in geology, Geology.

Mora was honored at a reception at UW on April 6, 2018.