Sophie Warny is an associate professor and the AASP Chair in Palynology in the department of Geology and Geophysics, and a Curator at the Museum of Natural Science (MNS), both at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She grew up in Belgium and France where she received two bachelors’ degrees (one in geology and one in oceanography) and a doctorate from the Université Catholique de Louvain (in Belgium) in marine geology working under the direction of Jean-Pierre Suc.

She is the director of the AASP-The Palynological Society Center for Excellence in Palynology (CENEX) and served in 2016 as vice president of the GCSSEPM society. Her center, CENEX, focuses on various aspects of palynological research including the use of pollen, spores and algae in biostratigraphic studies in collaboration with the industry to the use of pollen in forensic applications. The bulk of her research focuses on palaeoceanography and paleoclimate reconstruction, including investigation of the palynological record to decipher past sudden warming events and climate variability in the Antarctic to help constrain their triggering mechanisms.

Warny received a NSF CAREER award in 2011 and has published in journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Geoscience, PNAS, Geology and Gondwana Research. Warny has supervised 19 theses and dissertations since joining LSU in 2008.