Malcolm McCulloch is an expert in coral reef geochemistry at The University of Western Australia’s Ocean Graduate School, and a Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. He obtained his PhD from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and has been a leader in the fields of crustal and mantle evolution, cosmochemistry, and environmental geochemistry. His current research focuses on the important societal issue of how global climate and environmental changes are impacting marine systems, in particular the magnitude and impacts of anthropogenic CO2 driven ocean acidification and warming on both shallow-water and deep-sea coral reef environments. This is based on the development of multi-proxy geochemical techniques that provide powerful insights into the response of coral calcification to climate change, as well as the longer-term changes in seawater pH that are now occurring in the oceans due to uptake of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Malcolm has also shown how the geochemistry of long-lived corals have recorded major increases in sediments entering the Great Barrier Reef since European settlement, which is now used to assist catchment management programs in Australia and abroad. Malcolm has led numerous field programs to coral reef systems around the world, as well as the highly successful joint Schmidt Ocean Institute-UWA deep-sea oceanographic cruise to the submarine Perth Canyon aboard the RV Falkor in 2015.
Malcolm is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher having published over 330 scientific papers in leading international journals. He has received various prestigious awards including the Jaeger Medal for career excellence in the earth sciences from the Australian Academy of Sciences, the Ringwood Medal, a WA Premiers Fellowship, and an ARC Laureate Fellowship. Malcolm is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society (London), American Geophysical Union, Geochemical Society, and the Australian Geological Society.
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