Cindy Lee (scientist)

Not to be confused with Cindy Lee (band) or Cindy Lee (businesswoman).

Cindy Lee is a retired Distinguished Professor known for her research characterizing the compounds that comprise marine organic matter.

Education and career

Lee has a B.S. in chemistry and B.S.E. in chemical engineering from Arizona State University (1970) and a Ph.D. from University of California San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1975).^[1] Following her Ph.D., Lee became a postdoc at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1975 which transitioned into positions as an assistant scientist (1977–1981) and associate scientist (1981–1986). In 1987, Lee moved to SUNY Stony Brook where she remained until her retirement as a distinguished professor in 2016.^[1]

Research

Lee's first published paper was as an undergraduate^[2] which she described as the "...thrill of discovering something new".^[1] As a graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lee examined the abundance of dissolved amino acids in seawater.^[3][4] Following graduate school, Lee moved to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she first worked on sterols in marine sediments.^[5][6][7] In the early 1980s Lee began an extended collaboration with John Hedges, Stuart Wakeham and Michael Peterson which she described in a 2019 publication in Annual Reviews of Marine Science.^[1] This collaboration led to investigations into organic compounds found in particles sinking or suspended in the water column, and included developing new methods to capture particles^[8] and investigations into the preservation of organic matter.^[9][10]

In the 1990s, Lee joined researchers in the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) in the Equatorial Pacific where she used information on the composition of compounds captured in sediment traps to estimate the degradation of organic material^[11] and its susceptibility to biological degradation.^[12] Lee also worked on the JGOFS Arabian Sea project where she examined the flux of organic carbon with changes in the Southwest Monsoon.^[13] Lee later joined with modelers to estimate fluxes of particulate organic carbon and the resulting implications to the global carbon cycle.^[14]

In 2019, Lee authored two papers that reflect back on her career and provide a path forward and questions for future scientists. In Annual Reviews of Marine Science, Lee focused on considerations regarding sampling organic matter and her observations regarding the state of graduate education in marine science.^[1] In Marine Chemistry, Wakeham and Lee summarized past research in marine organic biochemistry while providing a set of open research questions for future scientists to address.^[15]

Awards

• Fellow, American Geophysical Union (1999)^[16]
• Harald Sverdrup Lecture, American Geophysical Union (2000)^[17]
• Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg Fellow (2003)^[18]
• Fellow, Geochemical Society/European Association of Geochemistry (2004)^[19]
• John Hedges Scholar, University of Washington (2010)^[20]
• G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (2011)^[21]
• Fellow, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (2015)^[22]

Additional reading

• Wakeham, Stuart G.; Lee, Cindy (May 2019). "Limits of our knowledge, part 2: Selected frontiers in marine organic biogeochemistry". Marine Chemistry. 212: 16–46. Bibcode:2019MarCh.212...16W. doi:10.1016/j.marchem.2019.02.005. S2CID 146028590.
• Lee, Cindy (2019-01-03). "Passing the Baton to the Next Generation: A Few Problems That Need Solving". Annual Review of Marine Science. 11 (1): 1–13. Bibcode:2019ARMS...11....1L. doi:10.1146/annurev-marine-010318-095342. ISSN 1941-1405. PMID 29852088.

References

1. Lee, Cindy (2019-01-03). "Passing the Baton to the Next Generation: A Few Problems That Need Solving". Annual Review of Marine Science. 11 (1): 1–13. Bibcode:2019ARMS...11....1L. doi:10.1146/annurev-marine-010318-095342. ISSN 1941-1405. PMID 29852088.
2. Munk, M.E.; Kulkarni, C.L.; Lee, C.L.; Brown, P. (1970). "Conformational effects in electron impact induced elimination reactions in the 1,2-diphenylethanol system". Tetrahedron Letters. 11 (16): 1377–1380. doi:10.1016/S0040-4039(01)97974-2. ISSN 0040-4039.
3. Lee, Cindy; Bada, Jeffrey L. (1977). "Dissolved amino acids in the equatorial Pacific, the Sargasso Sea, and Biscayne Bay1". Limnology and Oceanography. 22 (3): 502–510. Bibcode:1977LimOc..22..502L. doi:10.4319/lo.1977.22.3.0502. ISSN 1939-5590.
4. Lee, Cindy; Bada, Jeffrey L. (1975-05-01). "Amino acids in equatorial Pacific Ocean water". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 26 (1): 61–68. Bibcode:1975E&PSL..26...61L. doi:10.1016/0012-821X(75)90177-6. ISSN 0012-821X.
5. Lee, Cindy; Farrington, John W.; Gagosian, Robert B. (1979-01-01). "Sterol geochemistry of sediments from the western North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent coastal areas". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 43 (1): 35–46. Bibcode:1979GeCoA..43...35L. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(79)90044-9. ISSN 0016-7037.
6. Gagosian, Robert B.; Lee, Cindy; Heinzer, Franz (August 1979). "Processes controlling the stanol/stenol ratio in Black Sea seawater and sediments". Nature. 280 (5723): 574–576. Bibcode:1979Natur.280..574G. doi:10.1038/280574a0. ISSN 1476-4687. S2CID 4334122.
7. Lee, Cindy; Howarth, Robert W.; Howes, Brian L. (1980). "Sterols in decomposing Spartina alterniflora and the use of ergosterol in estimating the contribution of fungi to detrital nitrogen1". Limnology and Oceanography. 25 (2): 290–303. Bibcode:1980LimOc..25..290L. doi:10.4319/lo.1980.25.2.0290. ISSN 1939-5590.
8. Peterson, M. L.; Hernes, P. J.; Thoreson, D. S.; Ifedges, J. I.; Lee, C.; Wakeham, S. G. (1993). "Field evaluation of a valved sediment trap". Limnology and Oceanography. 38 (8): 1741–1761. Bibcode:1993LimOc..38.1741P. doi:10.4319/lo.1993.38.8.1741. ISSN 1939-5590.
9. Lee, Cindy (1992-08-01). "Controls on organic carbon preservation: The use of stratified water bodies to compare intrinsic rates of decomposition in oxic and anoxic systems". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 56 (8): 3323–3335. Bibcode:1992GeCoA..56.3323L. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(92)90308-6. ISSN 0016-7037.
10. Lee, C; Cronin, C (1982). "The vertical flux of particulate organic nitrogen in the sea : decomposition of amino acids in the Peru upwelling area and the equatorial Atlantic". Journal of Marine Research. 41: 227–251.
11. Hernes, Peter J.; Hedges, John I.; Peterson, Michael L.; Wakeham, Stuart G.; Lee, Cindy (1996-01-01). "Neutral carbohydrate geochemistry of particulate material in the central equatorial Pacific". Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography. 43 (4–6): 1181–1204. Bibcode:1996DSRII..43.1181H. doi:10.1016/0967-0645(96)00012-4. ISSN 0967-0645.
12. Wakeham, Stuart G.; Hedges, John I.; Lee, Cindy; Peterson, Michael L.; Hernes, Peter J. (1997-01-01). "Compositions and transport of lipid biomarkers through the water column and surficial sediments of the equatorial Pacific Ocean". Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography. 44 (9–10): 2131–2162. Bibcode:1997DSRII..44.2131W. doi:10.1016/S0967-0645(97)00035-0. ISSN 0967-0645.
13. Lee, C.; Murray, D. W.; Barber, R. T.; Buesseler, K. O.; Dymond, J.; Hedges, J. I.; Honjo, S.; Manganini, S. J.; Marra, J.; Moser, C.; Peterson, M. L.; Prell, W. L.; Wakeham, S. G. (1998-08-01). "Particulate organic carbon fluxes: compilation of results from the 1995 US JGOFS Arabian Sea Process Study: By the Arabian Sea Carbon Flux Group". Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography. 45 (10–11): 2489–2501. Bibcode:1998DSRII..45.2489L. doi:10.1016/S0967-0645(98)00079-4. ISSN 0967-0645.
14. Armstrong, Robert A.; Lee, Cindy; Hedges, John I.; Honjo, Susumu; Wakeham, Stuart G. (2001-01-01). "A new, mechanistic model for organic carbon fluxes in the ocean based on the quantitative association of POC with ballast minerals". Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography. 49 (1–3): 219–236. Bibcode:2001DSRII..49..219A. doi:10.1016/S0967-0645(01)00101-1. ISSN 0967-0645.
15. Wakeham, Stuart G.; Lee, Cindy (May 2019). "Limits of our knowledge, part 2: Selected frontiers in marine organic biogeochemistry". Marine Chemistry. 212: 16–46. Bibcode:2019MarCh.212...16W. doi:10.1016/j.marchem.2019.02.005. S2CID 146028590.
16. "AGU Union Fellows". Honors Program. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
17. "Harald Sverdrup Lecture |AGU". www.agu.org. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
18. "Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg - Institute for Advanced Study: Fellow". hanse-ias.de. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
19. "Geochemistry Fellows".
20. "2019 John Hedges Visiting Scholar". www.ocean.washington.edu. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
21. "SoMAS's Cindy Lee Receives ASLO's 2011 G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award". SoMAS. 2011-04-07. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
22. "Inaugural Class of ASLO Fellows includes Two SoMAS Professors". SoMAS. 2015-11-20. Retrieved 2021-05-14.

External links

• Cindy Lee publications indexed by Google Scholar