Professor David Fike
David Fike is the Glassberg/Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. His research uses geochemical analyses, particularly the stable isotopic analysis of carbon and sulfur compounds, to investigate the links between biological activity and ambient environmental conditions in modern and ancient marine systems. These analyses are used to understand controls on modern global biogeochemical cycles and feedbacks to evolutionary changes. When applied to ancient marine sediments, these techniques can be used to reconstruct environmental change over Earth history, particularly the occurrence of past ice ages and the rise of atmospheric oxygen and its relationship to animal evolution and mass extinctions. He is a leader in applying secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) techniques to improve our understanding of how environmental information gets encoded in these geochemical proxies. Currently, he is the Sir Nicholas Shackleton Fellow at Clare Hall, where he is working with colleagues in the Department of Earth Sciences to identify new ways to reconstruct changes in sea level and ocean temperatures over Earth history with additional support as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor.
Select publications
- Bryant, R. N., Houghton, J. L., Jones, C., Pasquier, V., Halevy, I., & Fike, D. A. 2023. “Deconvolving microbial and environmental controls on marine sedimentary pyrite sulfur isotope ratios”, Science, 382(6673): 912 – 915. DOI: 10.1126/science.adg6103
- Halevy, I., Fike, D. A., Pasquier, V., Bryant, R. N., Sela-Adler, M., Wenk, C. B., Turchyn, A. V., Claypool, G. E., & Johnston, D. T. 2023. “Sedimentary parameters control the sulfur isotope composition of marine pyrite”, Science, 382(6673): 946 – 951. DOI: 10.1126/science.adh1215
- Houghton, J., Scarponi, D., Capraro, L., & Fike, D. A. 2022. “Impact of sedimentation, climate and sea level on marine sedimentary pyrite sulfur isotopes: insights from the Valle di Manche section (Lower-Middle Pleistocene, southern Italy)”, Chemical Geology, 585: 110730. DOI:10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110730
- Wood, R. S., Lepland, A., Ogliore, R. C., Houghton, J., & Fike, D. A. 2021. “Microscale d34S heterogeneities in cold seep barite record variable methane flux off the Lofoten-Veståralen Continental Margin, Norway”, Earth & Planetary Science Letters, 574: 117164. DOI:10.1016/j.epsl.2021.117164
- Pasquier, V., Bryant, R. N., Fike, D. A., & Halevy, I. 2021. “Strong local, not global, controls on marine pyrite sulfur isotopes”, Science Advances, 7: eabb7403. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb7403
- Houghton, J. L., Jones, C., Dawson, K. S., Orphan, V. J., Gomes, M., & Fike, D. A. 2020. “Resolving micron-scale heterogeneity in porewater d34SH2S by combining films for in-situ sulfide capture and secondary ion mass spectrometry”, Marine Chemistry, 223: 103810: DOI: 10.1016/j.marchem.2020.103810
- McClelland, H.-L. O., Jones, C., Chubiz, L. M., Fike, D. A., & Bradley, A. S. 2020. “Direct observations of the dynamics of singe-cell metabolic activity during microbial diauxic growth”, mBIO, 11(2): e01519-19. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01519-19
- *Rose, C. V., Webb, S. M., Newville, M., Lanzirotti, A., *Richardson, J, Tosca, N. J., Catalano, J. G., Bradley, A. S. & Fike, D. A. 2019. “Insights into past ocean proxies from micron-scale mapping of sulfur species in carbonates”, Geology, 47(9): 833 – 837. DOI: 10.1130/G46228.1
Select awards
- Fellow, American Associate for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2026)
- Leverhulme Visiting Professorship, University of Cambridge (2026)
- Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2010)
- Churchill Scholarship (2001)
