Dr. Erika Marín-Spiotta is a Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She leads the Biogeochemistry and Biogeography Lab which studies how landscape disturbance due to changes in climate and land use alter terrestrial ecosystem processes, with a focus on soil organic matter dynamics. She also conducts collaborative interdisciplinary research on strategies to advance equity and broaden participation in science. She is a recipient of multiple national awards, including a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Ecological Society of America. Marín-Spiotta is the lead principal investigator of ADVANCEGeo Partnership, funded by the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program, to transform workplace climate in the geosciences and other science disciplines. She is also on the leadership team of the Mellon Foundation-funded Humanities Education for Anti-Racism Literacy in the Sciences project.
Erika received a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Political Science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Ecosystem Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to UW-Madison, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara.