Christopher Sabine, Ph.D.Nobel Conference 48

Director, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, Wash., and senior fellow at the University of Washington Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean

The research of environmental oceanographer Christopher Sabine concentrates on the global carbon cycle. He was among the first to publish scientific data about human-derived carbon dioxide in the ocean and its impact on marine ecosystems, work that helped shape the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act passed by Congress in March 2009. He was named the third director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in November 2011.

Sabine earned his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University (1986) with a major in marine science and holds a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Hawaii-Manoa (1992). He was on the research staffs of Princeton University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Texas Medical Branch before joining the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in 1999. He became a supervising oceanographer there in 2008 and received the NOAA Research Employee of the Year Award for Leadership in 2009. Sabine has been recognized by the NOAA five times with Outstanding Scientific Paper awards.