Barbara STENNI

Curriculum Vitae Barbara STENNI


Last Update: 2nd October 2020

Personal Information
Date and place of birth: 15/10/1963 in Trieste (Italy)
E-mail: barbara.stenni@unive.it
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4950-3664

Professional Employment
Current position:

August 2020-present: Full professor (GEO-08 Geochemistry and Vulcanology) at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics (DAIS) at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

Previous positions:

October 2014-July 2020: Associate professor (GEO-08 Geochemistry and Vulcanology) at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics (DAIS) at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
January 1989 - September 2014: technical coordinator, responsible of the isotope geochemistry laboratory at the Department of Mathematics and Geosciences, University of Trieste.

Education

• Degree in Geological Sciences, University of Trieste, 22nd march 1989 (marks 110/110); thesis title: “Otranto Channel and Bannock Deep: two studies of isotope oceanography”, supervisor: Prof. A. Longinelli.

• PhD in Earth Sciences, University of Milano 19th may 1999; thesis title: “Paleoclimate reconstruction based on isotopic stratigraphy of firn and ice cores in the Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica” supervisor: Prof. G. Orombelli.

Research interests
My research activity is focused mainly on paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatological studies, with particular emphasis on the climatic interpretation of water stable isotope records (d18O, dD and deuterium excess) of Antarctic and Alpine ice cores as well as to the application of the stable isotope geochemistry to hydrological, oceanographic and glaciological studies.
I carried out research projects both in the Mediterranean Sea (deep anoxic basin in the Eastern Mediterranean; isotopic studies in the Adriatic sea) and in the Western Ross Sea (Antarctica).
My research interest was also dedicated to the study of the oxygen isotope composition of the phosphate in mammal bones and teeth. The calibration curves obtained from present-day organisms allowed the paleoclimate reconstructions to be performed on fossil specimens.
During the past twenty years I have been mainly interested in the research focusing on the application of the isotope geochemistry to the study of snow, firn and ice cores retrieved from Antarctica through the determination of the oxygen (d18O) and hydrogen (dD) stable isotope composition and tritium activity in the framework of national and international research projects funded by PNRA (National Research Program in Antarctica) and E.U.
I also contributed with isotopic measurements to research projects focused on the characterization of groundwater and precipitation in Friuli Venezia Giulia region where a precipitation network was maintained. Several collaborations are active with research groups of hydrology of different universities through the d18O, dD and tritium activity analyses on water samples from groundwater, springs, meteoric waters and landfill leachates.
I acquired a very good knowledge of the management of the instrumentations used in isotope geochemistry laboratories: mass spectrometers for light elements (Finnigan Delta E, Delta S, Delta Plus; VG Optima) laser spectroscopes (PICARRO) and manual and automatic preparation lines for analysing the isotopic ratios (18O/16O, D/H, 13C/12C) of different sample types: waters, carbonates, silicates (whole rock or single phases), phosphates and sulphates.
I am responsible for scientific instrumentations (mass spectrometer and laser spectroscope) belonging to the SIA (Antarctic Interlaboratory System) of the PNRA (National Research Program in Antarctica).
These research activities result in 127 scientific publications on international journals, proceedings or volume chapters of which 104 in peer reviewed journals indexed in ISI Web of Science (h-index: 34, citations: 6877) and scientific contributions to national and international conferences (>200 contributions presented as author or co-author), also invited ones (16); furthermore, I am carrying out several reviews for international scientific journals and research funding agencies.

Responsibilities

• Leader of PAGES (Past Global Changes) Antarctica2k working group for the 2014-2017 period.

• Member of the IPICS (International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences) Scientific Steering Committee (SSC).

• Member of the SSC of the international Project TALDICE (http://www.taldice.org/).
• Representative for the CNR of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS-IUGG) for the 2015/2018 and 2019-2022 periods.
• Elected to the Council of the International Glaciological Society for the period 2014-2017 (http://www.igsoc.org/).
• Deputy Coordinator and member of the teaching Committee of the PhD in Polar Sciences at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
• Member of the Coordination Committee of the Italian Stable Isotope Group (GRITIS) inside the Division of Mass Spectrometry of the Italian Chemical Society.
• Co-leader of the working group PAGES CLIVASH2k.
• Member of the CNR working group "Paleoclimate dynamics" (established by DSSTTA on 22 May 2018).
• Member of the SSC and Excom of the project Beyond EPICA.

Membership
I am a member of the International Glaciological Society (IGS), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Italian Glaciological Committee, the Italian Chemical Society, The Italian Geochemistry Society.

Scientific participation to international and national research projects

• H2020-MSCA-ITN-2020 project “Research and training network on understanding Deep icE corE Proxies to Infer past antarctiC climatE dynamics – DEEPICE”, role: scientific beneficiary (partner UniVE) / Duration 48 months / Project starting in January 2021.
• PNRA18_00098-A Project "TALDEEP - Paleoclimate reconstruction from the deep part of the TALDICE ice core"/duration 24 months / Funded by MIUR in the frame of the National Research Program in Antarctica / Role: Responsible of Research Unit/ Running project.
• Project Inter-Reg IT-SLO – ACQUAVITIS “Innovative solutions for the efficient use of water in cross-border viticulture” / Funded EU / Role: Scientific responsible for UniVE beneficiary / Duration: 24 months / Running project.
• Project EU Beyond EPICA / Duration: 6 years / EU funded (RIA EU grant agreement No. 815384) - Third Party Contract with UniVE/ Role: scientific responsible of the contract and WP leader / Running project.
• PNRA16_00049 – B Project “East Antarctic International Ice Sheet Traverse (EAIIST) / Duration: 24 months / Funded by MIUR in the frame of the National Research Program in Antarctica / Role: Responsible of Research Unit/ Running project.
• Project PNRA16_00008 – A2 “Study of the Solar Forcing over the Holocene from a new Dome C Ice Core – SOLARICE” / Duration: 24 months / Funded by MIUR in the frame of the National Research Program in Antarctica / Role: Responsible of Research Unit / Running project at CNR.

• PNRA 2013/B2.11 Project “IPICS-2kyr-Italy second phase: the climate reconstruction” / Duration: 24 months / Principal Investigator; project concluded.

• PNRA 2013/AC3.05 Project “Precipitation Retrieval at Concordia (PRE-REC)” / Duration: 24 months / Research Unit Leader; project concluded.

• European Science Foundation Project n. 09-PolarCLIMATE-FP-012 "HOLOCLIP" (Holocene climate variability at high-southern latitudes: an integrated perspective) / Duration: 36 months / Project Coordinator; project concluded.

• Project n. 2009/A2.09 “IPICS-2kyr-Italy” – National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA) / Duration: 24 months / Research Unit Leader; project concluded.

• PRIN 2009 “Variability and geographic provenance of eolian dust in Antarctica during the late Quaternary: a multi-parametric approach with the use of cutting-edge techniques. / Duration: 24 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Joint PNRA-IPEV project CONCORDIA AIR-GlaCS – Aerosol studies at Station Concordia, Dome C, Antarctica “Present day sources, transport and air-to-snow interactions of atmospheric gases and aerosols at Dome C (Antarctica) and implications for ice core studies” (2008-2011). Scientific activities funded by PNRA / Duration: 48 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project “TALDICE” (Talos Dome Ice core Project) 2008 - PNRA / Duration: 24 months / Research Unit Leader; project concluded.

• PRIN-2007 "Geochemical balance for the evaluation of the agroenvironmental quality in a complex territorial system: the case study from the Ravenna area” / Duration: 24 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project “EPICA MIS - New Paleoreconstructions from Antarctic Ice and Marine Records”. E.U. funded project, FP6 project 003868 (GOCE) / Duration: 42 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project n. 2004/5.01 “Paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstructions from chemical, physical and isotopic ice cores records” - PNRA / Duration: 36 months / Research Unit Leader; project concluded.

• Project n. 2004/5.02 “Surface mass balance of Dome C and Talos Dome drainage area (SURFMASS)” - PNRA / Duration: 36 months / Research Unit Leader; project concluded.

• Project n. 2004/5.03 “Permafrost and Climate Change in Antarctica: study and monitoring of the impacts of Climate Change on permafrost and related terrestrial ecosystem and use of permafrost as paleoclimate archive” - PNRA / Duration: 36 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project E.U. Life04-ENV/IT/000500 “CAMI - Water-bearing characterization with integrated methodologies” / Duration: 30 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project “EPICA III- European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica”. E.U. funded project EVK2-CT-2000-0077 / Duration: 36 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project n. 2002/5.1 “Paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstructions from chemical, and physical ice cores records” - PNRA / Duration: 24 months / Participant;project concluded.

• Project “EPICA II- European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica”. E.U. funded project ENV4-CT98-00702 / Duration: 28 months / Participant;project concluded.

• Project E.U. “ALPCLIM - Environmental and Climate Records from High Elevation Alpine Glaciers” - Environment and Climate Program/ Duration: 36 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project OROMBE7 “Paleoclimate and paleoenvironment from ice core and glacial archives” - PNRA / Duration: 36 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project “EPICA - European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica”. E.U. funded project ENV4-CT95-0074  / Duration: 36 months / Participant; project concluded.

• Project 2a.1.1 “Surface mass balance, monitoring and paleoclimate study of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet – Pacific sector” - PNRA / Duration: 36 months / Participant. project concluded.

Participation to editorial boards

05/2010 – 03/2013: associate editor of the journal “Annals of Geophysics”.

Invited Editor for a special issue “International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) Second Open Science Conference” Climate of the Past/The Cryosphere inter-journal SI), 2016.

Since May 2018 I have been associated editor of the magazine "Climate of the Past", an open access peer-review scientific journal of Copernicus publisher.

Awards

• In 2003 Research Prize “Felice Ippolito” awarded by the National Antarctic Research Program and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei for the high quality of the scientific research carried out in Antarctica fundamentally contributing to understand the Earth past climate.

• The project TALDICE (TALos Dome Ice CorE) was awarded with the title of "Ambasciatore della Biodiversità” in May 2010 from the Minister of Environment, Land and Sea, for the scientific excellence.

• The project EPICA in 2007 was awarded with the "Descartes Prize": European Science Awards, Descartes Prize for Collaborative, Transnational Research.

Research Expeditions

• April 1989 oceanographic expedition in the southern part of the Adriatic Sea. (Project POEM).

• June 1989 oceanographic expedition in the Mediterranean Sea over the Bannock Basin.

• From November 1998 to February 1999 I participated to the XIV PNRA Italian Antarctic expedition at Dome C in the framework of the EPICA project.

Session Convener at International Conferences

• Co-convener at the JMS006 session “Glacial-Interglacial Cycles: New Records, Analyses, and Modelling” at “IUGG XXIV 2007”, Perugia, Italy, 2-13 July 2007.

• Co-chair of the Theme Team "Climate Change" (theme 12) for submitting sessions on the climate change at the “Goldschmidt 2011” Conference, 14-19 August 2011, Prague, Czech Republic.

• Convener at the session 12h "Geochemistry of ice sheets and their basal environments" at “Goldschmidt 2011” Conference, 14-19 August 2011, Prague, Czech Republic.

• Convener at the session “Antarctic climate variability during the Holocene: integrating different proxies and climate models” at “11th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences”, 10-16 July 2011 Edinburgh, Scotland.

• Co-director of the Workshop “Paleoclimate and Human Dispersal during MIS3” (SMR 2283) funded by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics of Trieste and held in Chennai, India, 12-17 December 2011.

• Co-convener at the session CL4.3 “Interglacial climate change - Learning from paleoclimate archives and models” at EGU-2013 General Assembly, Vienna, Austria, 7-12 April 2013.

• Convener at the session 31 “Paleoclimate – H2. Study the past to understand the future: climate and paleoclimate conditions through recent advances in the study of geological records in polar areas” at Geoitalia 2013, 16-18 September 2013.

• Co-convener at the session CL5.7 “Interglacial climate change - Learning from paleoclimate archives and models” at EGU-2014 General Assembly, Vienna, Austria, 27 April – 2 May 2014.

• Director of the workshop “PAGES Antarctica2k, 2015 Meeting”, Venice, Italy, 3-4 September 2015.

• Scientific Steering Committee of the “International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences, Second Open Science Conference”, Hobart, Australia, 7-11 March 2016.

• Scientific Committee of “The 1st Isotope Ratio MS DAY”, S. Michele all’Adige (Trento), 9-11 May 2016.

• Convener at the session “Climate and environments from past and present interglacials: natural variability and human-induced landscape changes” at 88° Congresso della Società Geologica Italiana, Naples, Italy, 7-9 September 2016.

• Co-convener at the session "The cryosphere and its interactions with the climate system (UC4)" at 16th EMS Annual Meeting & 11th European Conference on Applied Climatology (ECAC), Trieste, Italy, 12-16 September 2016.

• Co-convener at the session CL1.11/AS4.18/CR2.8 “The state-of-the-art in ice coring sciences” at EGU-2017 General Assembly, Vienna, Austria, 23-28 April 2017.

• Scientific and Organizing Committees of “Past Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics (PAIS) Conference 2017”, Trieste, Italy, 10-16 September 2017.
• Co-convener of the session “Paleo and polar climate” at the Sixth Annual Conference talian Society for Climate Sciences”, Venezia, Italy, 17-19 October 2018.
• Convener of the session “New Frontiers in Paleoclimate Reconstructions and Proxy Interpretations from Ice Cores” at the 27th IUGG General Assembly, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 8-18 July 2019.

Invited and key-note speaker

• Invited speaker at the “Conference on Milankovitch Cycles over the past 5 million years” organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, 22-24 March 2007.

• Invited speaker at the “Open Science Conference EPICA 2008, Quaternary Climate: from Pole to Pole”, Venice, 10-13 November 2008.

• Invited speaker at the “First Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) Symposium”, Granada, Spain, 7-11 September 2009.
•  Invited speaker at the “2nd International Symposium on the Dome Fuji ice core and related topics, Tokyo, Japan, 18-20 November 2009.

• Invited speaker at the “AGU Fall Meeting” San Francisco (USA), 13-17 December 2010.

• Key-note speaker at “GEOITALIA”, Torino, 19-23 settembre 2011.

• Invited speaker at “Spettrometria di massa isotopica”, S. Michele all’Adige, 11-13 April 2012.

• Invited speaker at the “1st Bilateral Italo/Chinese Workshop. From Glacier to Climate Change: Euro-Asiatic perspectives in cryospheric sciences”, Beijing, Cina, 9-10 July 2012, organized by the Scientific Office of the Italian Embassy of Beijing.

• Invited speaker at the “XII International Conference on Science, Arts and Culture, CLIMATE CHANGE: marine and mountain ecosystems in the Mediterranean region” organized by ECSAC (European Centre for Science Arts and Culture), Veli Lošinj (Croatia), 27-31 August 2012.

• Invited speaker at the workshop on “Large-scale climate variability in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean over decades to centuries, and links to extra-polar climate” organized by World Climate Research Program Polar Climate Predictability Initiative, Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, 24-26 March 2015.

• Key-Note speaker at the “International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences, Second Open Science Conference”, Hobart, Australia, 7-11 March 2016.
• Key Note speaker at the “1st IRMS Day”, Fondazione Edmund Mach, S. Michele all’Adige, Italy, 9-11 May 2016.

• Strategic Lecture at the Opening Session of the 16th EMS Annual Meeting & 11th European Conference on Applied Climatology (ECAC), Trieste, Italy, 12-16 September 2016.
• Invited speaker at the Conference “TANGR 2018”, Hefei, Cina, 4-7 September 2018.
• Invited speaker at the Workshop “The dynamics of the climate in the last glacial-interglacial cycle”, 17-18 June 2019, Bologna, Italy.
• Invited speaker at the Workshop on “Climate and Environmental changes: Past, Present and Future”, 16-17 January 2020, Pisa, Italy.

Supervisor of PhD thesis

• Co-supervisor of a PhD thesis in Earth Sciences (XIX° cycle) at the University of Parma: Enrico Selmo “Deuterium excess variations during the past 800.000 years in the EPICA Dome C ice core (East Antarctica): paleoclimate implications”.

• Co-supervisor of a PhD thesis in Environmental Sciences (physical, marine and coastal environment) (XX° cycle) at the University of Trieste: Laura Genoni “An isotope geochemistry study for an estimation of the surface mass balance of the Dome C drainage basin (East Antarctica) as a contribution for the seal level changes”.

• Supervisor of a PhD thesis in Environmental Sciences (physical, marine and coastal environment) (XXV° Cycle) at the University of Trieste: Marzia Michelini ”The isotopic composition of precipitation in Friuli Venezia Giulia”.

• Supervisor of a PhD thesis in Environmental Sciences (physical, marine and coastal environment) (XXV° Cycle) at the University of Trieste: Martina Braida “High-resolution paleoclimate reconstruction of East Antarctica over the Holocene”.

• Co-supervisor of a PhD thesis in Science and Management of Climate Change (XXVIII° Cycle) at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: Giuliano Dreossi “A recent past temperature reconstruction based on oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopes in Alpine ice cores”.
• Co-supervisor of a PhD thesis in Environmental Sciences (XXX° Cycle) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: Daniele Zannoni “Geochemical characterization of water vapor in the Venice Lagoon”.
• Co-supervisor of a PhD thesis in Environmental Sciences (XXXI° Cycle) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: Alba Gallo “From the soil to the table: elements for traceability of products in the agri-food chain”.

I am currently supervisor of two PhD theses, one in Science and Management of Climate Change with a thesis in co-tutorship with the French University Paris-Saclay, and one in Environmental Sciences with an industrial doctoral thesis.