Dr. Marie-Pierre Aubry is a Distinguished Professor of geological sciences. A specialist in coccolithophores her interests include Cenozoic stratigraphy and geochronology, major extinction events in the Cenozoic, and the evolution of the marine plankton. She is the author of a multi-volume atlas on Cenozoic Coccolithophores in which she explores the paleobiology of the group. She has been involved in interdisciplinary studies on the late Neogene emergence of the Isthmus of Panama and in geoarcheological studies on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes (Luxor, Egypt). She serves on the North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature, the International Subcommission on Neogene Stratigraphy and the International Commission on Stratigraphic Classification. She was Chairman of the ICS Working Group on the Paleocene/Eocene boundary and President of International Geological Correlation Project 308.