Jill S. Schneiderman

S.B., Earth Science, Yale University, 1981
M.A., Earth Science, Harvard University, 1985
PhD, Earth Science, Harvard University, 1987

Jill Schneiderman earned her PhD studying metamorphic rocks in the New England Appalachians. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian examining heavy minerals in the Nile and its delta, she focused her geological research on sediment provenance studies. Her geological fieldwork has taken her from the Appalachian mountains to the Yangtze delta and many locations in between. Schneiderman’s most recent scientific research focuses on microplastics in terrestrial sands on Cape Cod. Additionally, using feminist approaches to critical science studies, she is engaged in debates about the proposed designation of a new geological epoch termed the “Anthropocene.”

Schneiderman has long been intellectually active at the intersection of science and social justice. For example, in 1997, she received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop and teach a first-in-the-nation interdisciplinary course on earth science and environmental justice. As a Congressional Science Fellow for the Geological Society of America in the US Senate during the 104th Congress she advised the Senate minority leader on science and environmental issues. In 2003, Professor Schneiderman was a Fulbright fellow at the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago where she pursued research on women and water resources on the island. In 2009 she was a Fellow of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education developing curriculum on geologic time and contemplative practice. In addition to her numerous peer-reviewed papers in natural science and the humanities, she is the editor or co-editor of four books: The Earth Around Us: Maintaining a Livable Planet (2003); Exploring Environmental Science with GIS (2005); For the Rock Record: Geologists on Intelligent Design (2009); and Liberation Science: Putting Science to Work for Social and Environmental Justice (2012) and blogs regularly on the topic of science and spirit.