12/3/97

CONTACT: Janet Basu, News Service (650) 723-7582;
e-mail basu@stanford.edu <

Pamela Matson elected AAAS fellow

Pamela Matson has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Four other Stanford faculty members also were named in the announcement of fellows sent out by AAAS in October; Matson was on the faculty at the University of California-Berkeley until September, and her announcement originally was sent to Berkeley. Now she is professor of geological and environmental sciences at Stanford, with a joint appointment to the university's Institute for International Studies.

Matson is a biogeochemist who studies the cycling of nutrients between rock, soils, plants, water and the atmosphere. She investigates how these cycles are affected by changes in land use, agriculture and nitrogen deposition. She works with ecologists and social scientists to determine how those changes influence the greenhouse effect and other aspects of atmospheric chemistry, and how land management alternatives can be developed to reduce negative environmental effects. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a MacArthur Fellow, Matson serves on national and international scientific committees investigating various issues related to global change. Recently she served on the National Forum on Environment and Natural Resources Research and Development of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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By Janet Basu