Chemical Oceanographer Joins Geosciences

Jun 19, 2015

Welcome Jessica Fitzsimmons to the Department of Oceanography.

Jessica N. Fitzsimmons joined the College of Geosciences June 15 as an assistant professor in oceanography. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. Her undergraduate degree is from Boston University, where she majored in chemistry and biology with a specialization in marine science. Her current research focuses on the biogeochemistry of trace metals in the open ocean, with funded projects exploring the chemical composition of marine colloidal iron species and the distribution and speciation of trace metals in the Arctic Ocean.

Fitzsimmons was most recently a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers where she studied dissolved metals along the West Antarctic Peninsula and particulate metals in the East Pacific Rise hydrothermal plume.  She was also a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, studying the “Temporal variability of iron at Station ALOHA.” Her honors and awards include the Rossby Award for the top dissertation in the MIT Programs in Atmospheres Oceans and Climate, an MIT Martin Family Society Fellowship for Sustainability, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and an MIT Presidential Fellowship. She has 17 papers published or in review and has participated in nine research cruises, including serving as junior chief scientist on board R/V Kilo Moana in 2012. She will to sail on the multi-cruise international GEOTRACES expedition to the Arctic later this summer. She is bringing two NSF grants to the college.

Fitzsimmons was recently featured in Oceanography magazine’s special issue, “Women in Oceanography: A Decade Later.” 

By Karen Riedel