Biosketch

✦ Field camp in 'the barrens' of the Slave Craton, NWT Canada, Aug 2016. (photo: Steve Shirey)

Biographical Sketch – Steven B. Shirey, PhD

Dr. Steven Shirey is a senior staff scientist of the Carnegie Institution for Science where he is a member of the five-person Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry Group of the Earth and Planets Laboratory. Independently and with his mentoring of PhD students, and postdoctoral fellows, Dr. Shirey researches geological processes pertaining to the igneous evolution of the solid Earth. The formation of diamonds has been an area of interest and research for Dr. Shirey for nearly two decades. He is noted for the study of mineral inclusions in diamonds which has been applied to global scale questions such as the age of diamond-forming events, the creation of the continents, the onset of plate tectonics, and the recycling of surface materials into the deeper parts of the mantle. Dr. Shirey is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the Geochemical Society, and the Mineralogical Society of America where he served as its president. In addition to his work on lithospheric and superdeep diamonds, he has published widely on topics as diverse as arc volcanism, Archean crustal evolution, continental volcanism, meteorites and impacts, mantle heterogeneity, and isotope geochemistry method development.

Professional Preparation

Carnegie Institution of Washington Postdoctoral Fellow, Isotope Geology 1984 - 1985

SUNY Stony Brook Ph.D., Geochemistry 1979 - 1984

University of Massachusetts M.Sc., Geology 1972 - 1975

Dartmouth College A.B., Geology 1968 - 1972

Appointments and Employment

Staff Member Carnegie Institution of Washington 1985 - present

Adjunct Professor University Maryland College Park 1992-2014

Postdoctoral Fellow Carnegie Institution of Washington 1984 - 1985

Research Assistant SUNY Stony Brook 1981 - 1984

Teaching Assistant SUNY Stony Brook 1979 - 1980

Research Staff Geologist Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1977 - 1979

Research Mineralogist Mt. Sinai Hospital Environ. Science Lab 1975 - 1976

Exploration Geologist Noranda Exploration (summer) 1970 - 1974

Publications

Google Scholar H-index = 72 >20,300 citations

National Science Foundation (NSF) Funding 1985-2024

Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on 27 National Science Foundation grants out of 40 submissions totaling $9,289,836 from 1985-2024

Sucess rate = 68% (66% of these awards for research projects, 34% of awards for analytical equipment)

Honors and Awards

Distinguished Alumni Award, Geoscience Department, University of Massachusetts (2017)

President, Mineralogical Society of America (2015)

Fellow, American Geophysical Union (2010)

Fellow, Geochemical Society (2010 )

President, Geological Society of Washington (1999)

Fellow, Mineralogical Society of America (1998)

Fellow, Geological Society of America (1997)

Graduate and Postdoctoral Advisors

Stearns A. Morse, University of Massachusetts (M.S. advisor); Gilbert N. Hanson, SUNY Stony Brook (Ph.D. advisor); Richard W. Carlson, Carnegie Institution of Washington (Postdoctoral advisor)

Student Advisees (24, with original school affiliation)

Meagan Ankney (Univ. Wisconsin), C. Tucker Barrie (University of Toronto), Grant Bybee (University of Witwatersrand), Jean Carignan (University of Montreal), Cathleen Doherty (Lamont-Doherty), Katie Donnelly (Lamont Doherty), Lynne Elkins (Smith College), Garret Hart (University of Wisconsin), Darrell Hyde (Memorial University), Kateryna Klochko (University of Maryland), Craig McClung (U of Witwatersrand), Andrew Menzies (Univeristy of Cape Town), Suzanne Nicholson (University of Minnesota), Wendy Nelson (Penn State University), Eliza Poggi (National Cathedral School), Kisha Steele (Howard University), Violet Simelane (University of Witwatersrand), Karen Smit (University of Cape Town), Josh Smith (Indiana University), Valentina Taranovic (Indiana University), Kalle Westerlund (University of Cape Town), Em White (Penn State), Bai-Qing Wu (Northern Illinois University), Karina Zavala (Johns Hopkins University).

Postdoctoral Scholars Mentored (36, with present position)

Sonja Aulbach (University of Frankfurt), Harry Becker (Free University of Berlin), Andrey Bekker (UC Riverside), Al Brandon (University of Houston, ret.), Paterno Castillo (Univ of California, San Diego), Cornelia Class (Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory), Oded Elazar (current EPL Fellow), Sonia Esperança (National Science Foundation, ret.), Marion Garçon (Clermont-Ferrand), David Gerlach (deceased), Eloïse Gaillou (Paris Museum of Mines), Munir Humayun (Florida State University), Matt Jackson (University California, Santa Barbara), Kenneth Klevin (US EPA), David Lambert (National Science Foundation), Petrus le Roux (University of Cape Town), Ambre Luguet (University of Bonn), Candace Martin (University of Wellington), Wendy Nelson (Towson State University), Peng Ni (UCLA), Suzanne Nicholson (USGS Reston), Dominic Papineau (University College, London), Graham Pearson (University of Alberta), Jesse Reimink (Penn State), Ivan Savov (Leeds University), Lasse Schïotte (deceased), Mark Schmitz (Boise State University), Karen Smit (Gemological Institute of America), Evan Smith (Gemological Institute of America), Ole Stecher (University of Copenhagen), Liyan Tian (Sanya Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering), Paul Tomascak (SUNY College at Oswego), Richard Walker (University of Maryland, College Park), Da Wang (China), Jessica Warren (University of Delaware), Elisabeth Widom (Miami University, Ohio)