André W. Droxler, Ph.D., is currently a professor in the Department of Earth
Science and Baker Institute Scholar. His research has focused on studying the
morphology of and the sediments accumulating on slopes and basin floors surrounding
coral reefs and carbonate platforms.
Over the past 30years, he has conducted research programs in the Bahamas,
offshore Jamaica, along the Belize margin, in the western Gulf of Mexico, in the
Maldives (Indian Ocean), along the Australian Great Barrier Reef and in the Gulf of
Papua (Papua New Guinea). The main focuses of Droxler’s research include the
regional and global evolution of coral reefs, the paleo oceanographic/ climatic and sea
level records archived in the sediments deposited around reefs and carbonate
platforms. Recently, Droxler has focused his research in Central Texas (Mason County)
where his research group is studying unique and spectacular Upper Cambrian (500
million years old) microbial reefs cropping out on private ranches that were not
accessible for 40 years or more.
His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the American
Chemical Society and numerous grants from oil and gas companies. Droxler has
published more than100 scientific publications and has edited two books, including
“Earth’s Climate and Orbital Eccentricity: The Marine Isotope Stage11 Question” (2003).
Before becoming an assistant professor at Rice in January 1987, he was a postdoctoral
research scientist at the University of South Carolina from 1985 to 1986. Droxler
received his Master’s degree equivalent from the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
in 1978 and earned his Ph.D. from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric
Sciences at the University of Miami (Florida) in 1984.