David B. Field

David B. Field is an Associate Professor of Marine Sciences at Hawaii Pacific University's College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Department of Natural Science. His research spans oceanography, paleoceanography, and climate change, focusing on decadal-to millennial-scale variability in ocean-climate systems and marine ecosystems.

His work integrates modern and historical data with geological archives like marine sediment cores and coral cores to distinguish natural variability from anthropogenic impacts. Collaborations include partnerships with NIST for trace element analysis in coral skeletons to track environmental changes around Oahu.

• Education: Ph.D. in Oceanography (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, 2004); B.S. in Biology (Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, UCSD, 1995); Minor in Spanish Literature (OAP Universidad Arturo Prat, 1994)

Research Highlights:

• Reconstructing 20th-century nearshore environmental changes using Porites coral cores
• Analyzing laminated sediments from low-oxygen environments (Santa Barbara Basin, Peru) for high-resolution climate records
• Quantifying fish scales in sediment layers to study pre-industrial fisheries dynamics

Teaching: Courses include General Oceanography, Chemical Oceanography, Biological Oceanography, Marine Fisheries Management, and graduate-level science communication seminars.