Paleoclimatologist Maureen Raymo receives the 2026 Nemmers Prize for reshaping how scientists explain climate change through Earth’s deep past.
A major Earth science milestone is landing in the hands of paleoclimatologist Maureen Raymo, whose work has helped sharpen how scientists interpret climate change across Earth’s history.
Misryoum reports that Raymo has been named the 2026 Nemmers Prize winner in Earth Sciences, a recognition for research that has reshaped scientific thinking about how climate evolves over geologic time. The award also highlights her educational leadership in Earth system sciences.
Raymo, a G.. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Science at Columbia University. previously directed the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and helped establish the Columbia Climate School.. Her career has focused on using evidence from Earth’s physical spheres—solid Earth. oceans. and the atmosphere—to understand how interacting components of the planet can steer climate on long time scales.
Her influence is closely tied to the Uplift Weathering Hypothesis, an approach that connects multiple Earth system processes.. By linking mountain building and tectonics with ocean chemistry. chemical weathering. and the carbon cycle. the framework offers a way to translate changes in Earth’s geography into shifts that can echo through the climate system.
This is the kind of scientific synthesis that matters because Earth’s climate story is not written by any single factor. Models and hypotheses gain power when they can connect mechanisms across disciplines, helping researchers test explanations against the record left in rocks and sediments.
Misryoum notes that Raymo will visit Northwestern during the 2026–27 academic year to take part in events with faculty and students in Earth-related academic programming.
The 2026 Nemmers Prizes also include awards across multiple fields, recognizing scholars for sustained contributions and for advancing new analytical approaches.. In mathematics, Andrei Okounkov of Columbia University received a Nemmers award for uncovering connections among chance, shape, and geometry.
Beyond the ceremony and travel, Misryoum sees the broader signal in these honors: supporting research that builds bridges between ideas can accelerate what the scientific community is able to explain, predict, and ultimately understand about complex systems like Earth.