Ellen Thomas (scientist)
Ellen Thomas (born 1950, Hengelo) is a Dutch-born environmental scientist and geologist specializing in marine micropaleontology and paleoceanography. She is the Harold T Stearns Professor and the Smith Curator of Paleontology of the Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History at Wesleyan University, and a senior research scientist at Yale University. Academic career and research. Thomas attended the University of Utrecht (BSc, 1971; MSc 1975; and PhD, 1979). Thomas studies environmental and climate change over geologic timescales, specializing in the study of benthic foraminifera. Thomas was the first scientist to discover a mass extinction in benthic  foraminifera close to the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, now recognized as a result of the climate event known as the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, for which she received the 2012 Maurice Ewing medal of the American Geophysical Union and Ocean Naval Research. Thomas was editor-in-chief of the journal "Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology" from 2015-2019, published by the American Geophysical Union. Awards and honors. The Micropalaeontological Society - 2016 Brady Medal. American Geophysical Union - 2012 Maurice Ewing Medal. Fellow AAAS, 2011. Fellow AGU, 2012; Fellow GSA, 2019. References.