Amy Leventer

Amy Leventer is a professor of geology at Colgate University, and teaches courses in oceanography, marine geology, environmental geology, paleoclimatology, climate change, and science and exploration. Her research is in the field of understanding climate change since the last glacial maximum with a focus on the paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic history of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Her specialty is micropaleontology and the study of fossil diatoms, algae with cell walls made of silica, which are especially well preserved in marine sediments around Antarctica. These data hold clues to the history of the presence or absence of sea ice and glacial ice, changes in oceanic productivity, and variations in oceanic circulation in the past. She has participated on over 20 research expeditions to Antarctica since 1983.