Packard Foundation Fellow Jessica E. Tierney (born 1982) is an American paleoclimatologist who has worked with geochemical proxies such as marine sediments,[1] mud,[2][3] and TEX86,[4] to study past climate in East Africa.
Tierney completed her bachelor's degree in geology in 2005 at Brown University, where she researched trace elements in Peru Margin sediments for her thesis.
Sediment cores from Lake Tanganyika allowed Tierney to examine changes in precipitation and temperature during the past glacial cycle in East Africa.
[11] Tierney worked as an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution[5] before arriving at the University of Arizona[7] where she is an associate professor.
[2][3][14] Tierney also uses TEX86, a biomarker that tracks temperature, to study past climate in the tropics[4] on decadal and interannual scales;[6] for example, examining the relationship Indo-Pacific variability and East African rainfall.