March 29, 2018 | "Ocean Acidification and Marine Phytoplankton" with François Morel, Albert G. Blanke, Jr., Professor of Geosciences; Professor of Geosciences and the Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton UniversityFrançois Morel is the Albert G. Blanke, Jr., Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University. He received a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Grenoble, France, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Science from the California Institute of Technology. He was a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1973 to 1994 and joined the Princeton faculty in 1994. The research in his laboratory focuses on the interaction of trace metals and microorganisms in the environment, with particular emphasis on the role of metals in the global cycles of carbon and nitrogen in marine and terrestrial systems. Morel's research group discovered the only known cadmium enzyme, a cadmium carbonic anhydrase used by marine phytoplankton to acquire inorganic carbon for photosynthesis. At Princeton, Pr. Morel teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. Morel and his student Janet Hering authored the widely used teaching text Principles and Applications of Aquatic Chemistry (Wiley). He is the former director of the Ralph M. Parsons laboratory at MIT, the Princeton Environmental Institute, and the NSF-supported Center for Environmental BioInorganic Chemistry.
Morel is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettre ed Arti. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and of the Geochemical Society. He received the Patterson Medal from the Geochemical Society in 2001, the Urey Medal from the American Geophysical Union in 2005, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the California Institute of Technology in 2009, and the Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology from the American Chemical Society in 2010. He is the recipient of the 2010 Eni Environmental Award from the Eni Foundation and of the 2012 Dickson Prize in the Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University.