Julie Jastrow

Julie Dierstein Jastrow is an American terrestrial ecologist who works at the Argonne National Laboratory. Her research considers soil and ecosystems ecology. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.

Early life and education Jastrow was an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she studied aggregate formation and stabilization in prairie soils.

Research and career In 1994, Jastrow joined the Argonne National Laboratory. Her research makes use of multi-scale mechanistic studies to understand the dynamics of organic soil. She has contributed to our understanding of soil biogeochemical responses to changes in vegetation and land management. Eventually, Jastrow was appointed Lead of the Ecosystem Biogeochemistry Group in the Environmental Science Division. She has served on the steering committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Frontiers in Soil Science research.

Jastrow started researching permafrost soil carbon in 2012. At the time, permafrost was gaining increasing interest due to concerns about climate change. Permafrost stores thousands of billions of tonnes of carbon, which is around a third of global terrestrial carbon. Jastrow has studied how global warming impacts the amount of stored carbon.

Awards and honours Jastrow served as President of the Soil Ecology Society in 2004.

In 2014, Jastrow was awarded the University of Chicago – Argonne Board of Governors Distinguished Performance Award.

Selected publications