Caitlin Keating-Bitonti
33rd GSA-USGS
Congressional Science Fellow.
GSA and the U.S. Geological Survey are pleased to announced Caitlin Keating-Bitonti will serve as the 2018-2019 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow.
Keating-Bitonti is an Earth scientist with expertise in paleontology. As a native of southeast Michigan, Caitlin grew up collecting ancient marine fossils, developing a strong interest in the planet’s history and concern for its future. Pursuing this passion in graduate school, Caitlin reconstructed ancient climate and ocean conditions studying microfossil assemblages and their isotopic compositions as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her research integrates paleontology, geology, oceanography, physiology, and statistical models to examine how ancient marine organisms responded to past environmental perturbations and how these climate shifts shaped their evolutionary history.
Recognizing that the geosciences are a vital public concern but are rarely included in a typical high school curriculum, Caitlin became committed to geoscience education and outreach. During her graduate career, she mentored over 10 high school students and teamed with two other graduate students to develop and teach a Climate Change Science course at a preparatory school in Palo Alto, CA. After receiving her Ph.D. from Stanford University, Caitlin joined the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as a Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow, where she continued her research and also participated in museum outreach. Her time in D.C. solidified her desire to be involved in the policy-making process and to advocate that our practices and policies be informed by scientific knowledge. Caitlin is excited to have to opportunity to serve as the 2018-2019 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow. Caitlin earned her B.S. in Geology from Syracuse University (NY), her M.S in Geology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison (WI), and her Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University (CA).