Jessica Moerman

Jonathan Bartlett

Paleoclimatologist, Washington, DC

Jessica Moerman felt called to join God in ministry but wondered, “How can I serve God’s kingdom by studying geology?”

She found the answer during a freshman-year lecture that explained how the rock record holds evidence of the Earth’s past climate. “I was fascinated that creation had these clues about Earth’s history,” she said.

She felt drawn to the missional dimension of climate change. “It’s really the most vulnerable in society that are impacted by global warming, and they contribute to it the least. That’s where those two callings clicked,” said Moerman, who is now a science and technology policy fellow with the AAAS.

Moerman completed postdoctoral studies at the Smithsonian Institution, during which time she obtained sediments from a paleolake in Kenya. She’s also collected stalagmites from caves on the tropical Pacific island of Borneo. “I measure the chemical signatures in each layer and analyze ‘What do patterns look like? How does it match up with other similar records in that region? Or other regions that might be impacted?’

“It’s kind of like reading a page out of the history book,” she said. “We can also use it to answer questions about how and why climate is changing today and will in the future.”

Researchers compare chemical footprints from different samples to computer simulations that are globally shared. “Each of our records is like a pinprick. . . . If you had a map, you could put a pushpin in each. But we need to bring them all together to get the full global picture.

“I love working in these big teams to answer these really big thorny questions where [answers] can only come from people working together,” she said.

Also in this series

Also in this issue

This month’s cover story examines the power of communal confession to heal the church’s—and society’s—deepest divisions. But pastor and writer Jeff Peabody doesn’t point to the early church or to liturgical traditions as the model for how we should pray; he turns to the famous ancient prayer of Daniel at the end of Israel’s long Babylonian exile. The prayer upends our typical notions of what it means to “speak prophetically,” and the implications for our fractious cultural and political moment are striking.

Cover Story

Forgive Us Our Sins (And Theirs, Too)

Set Free by the Cross, Why Do We Live in Bondage?

New Editor, Old Roots

The Motherly Love of a Wrathful God

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Democratic Christians Weigh Their Primary Concerns

Real Love Requires a Command

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Have You Noticed Church Is Farther Away Than it Used to Be?

María de los Ángeles La Torre Cuadros

Why Do Fewer Christian Women Work in Science?

Twelve Christian Women in Science You Should Know

Erica Carlson

Mary Schweitzer

Joanna Ng

Audrey Bowden

Margaret Miller

Lydia Manikonda

Keila Natilde Lopez

Georgia Dunston

Mercy Akinyi

Alynne MacLean

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I Assumed Science Had All the Answers. Then I Started Asking Inconvenient Questions.

The Old Testament Twins We’ve Forgotten

Our March Issue: Us vs. Us

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Christian Martyr Numbers Down by Half in a Decade. Or Are They?

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The Many Faces of Narcissism in the Church

Review

Religious Parents Are Remarkably Similar, Even When They Belong to Different Religions

Review

Be Careful About Reading the Bible as a Political Guide

New & Noteworthy Books

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My Generation Prized ‘Authenticity.’ Why I’ve Come to Love Wearing a Mask.

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Why German Evangelicals Are Praising God in English

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