{{Short description|American professor of environmental studies and biology}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Tyler Volk | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = TylerVolk.photo.for.NYU.web.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_date = <!--{{birth date |YYYY|MM|DD}}--> | birth_place = United States | death_date = <!--{{death date and age |YYYY|MM|DD |YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date)--> | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = <!--{{coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline,title}}--> | other_names = | residence = | citizenship = | nationality = | fields = {{Plainlist| * Climate *Biogeochemical cycles * Energy * Environmental studies * Metapatterns}} | workplaces = {{Plainlist|
* New York University}} | patrons = | education = University of Michigan (BA) New York University (MA, PhD) | thesis_title = <!--(or | thesis1_title = and | thesis2_title = )--> | thesis_url = <!--(or | thesis1_url = and | thesis2_url = )--> | thesis_year = <!--(or | thesis1_year = and | thesis2_year = )--> | doctoral_advisor = Martin Hoffert | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | spouse = <!--(or | spouses = )--> | partner = <!--(or | partners = )--> | children = | signature = <!--(filename only)--> | signature_alt = | website = *[https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/tyler-volk.html NYU website] *[https://tylervolk.wikidot.com/ Personal website] | footnotes = }} '''Tyler Volk''' is a Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and Biology at New York University (NYU). His areas of interest include environmental challenges to global prosperity, global changes in CO<sub>2</sub>, biosphere theory, and the role of life in Earth's dynamics.<ref name=":0">{{cite web | url = http://as.nyu.edu/environment.html | title = NYU Department of Environmental Studies}}</ref> He first attended the University of Michigan, graduating with a Bachelors in Architecture in 1971; he later graduated from NYU with a Masters in Applied Sciences in 1982 and a PhD in Applied Sciences in 1984.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tyler Volk |url=https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/tyler-volk.html?challenge=d06e90d7-4d8f-4b88-9d8c-10b73beb60f1 |access-date= |website=NYU Arts & Sciences: Faculty}}</ref>
==Environmental studies and teaching== Volk worked on the planning and development of the Environmental Studies Program with Dale Jamieson and Christopher Schlottmann, launching it in 2007; the program became a department in NYU’s Faculty of Arts and Science in 2014.<ref name=":0" /> Volk was awarded NYU’s “Golden Dozen” teaching award in both 2004 and 2008.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Past Recipients |url=https://cas.nyu.edu/teaching-awards/past-recipients.html |access-date=2026-04-30 |website=cas.nyu.edu |language=en-US}}</ref> Volk also received a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2009.<ref>{{Cite web |title=2008-2009 Distinguished Teaching Award Recipients |url=https://www.nyu.edu/en/academics/awards-and-highlights/university-distinguishedteachingawards/past-recipients/2008-2009-distinguished-teaching-award-recipients.html |access-date=2026-04-30 |website=www.nyu.edu |language=en}}</ref>
==Biosphere science== Volk's research explores Earth's biosphere, modeling the global carbon cycle, and quantifying the biological and physical impacts from the ocean and biosphere on it.<ref>{{Citation | last1 = Volk | first1 = Tyler | last2 = Hoffert | first2 = Martin | date = 1985 | contribution = Ocean carbon pumps: analysis of relative strengths and efficiencies in ocean-driven atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> changes | title = The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub>: Natural Variations Archean to Present | editor = E. T. Sundquist and W. S. Broecker | volume = Geophysical Monograph 32 | pages = 99–110 | publisher = American Geophysical Union, Wash., D.C.}}</ref>
In 2000, Volk served on the American Geophysical Union's Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis program committee in Valencia, Spain. His presentation, ''“Gaia is life in a wasteworld of by-products”'', was published in 2004.<ref>Volk, T. (2004). “Gaia is life in a wasteworld of by-products,“ in ''Scientists Debate Gaia,'' S. H. Schneider, et al. (eds.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 27—36.</ref> He has debated James Lovelock, Tim Lenton and David Wilkinson on various concepts relating to the Gaia Hypothesis.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Volk | first = Tyler | date = 2003 | title = Seeing deeper into Gaia theory: A reply to Lovelock's response | journal = Climatic Change | volume = 57 | pages = 5–7 | doi = 10.1023/a:1022193813703 }}</ref> Volk also publicly debated Axel Kleidon on the role of entropy in the biosphere.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Volk | first = Tyler | date = 2007 | title = The properties of organisms are not tunable parameters selected because they create maximum entropy production on the biosphere scale: A by-product framework in response to Kleidon | journal = Climatic Change | volume = 85 | issue = 3–4 | pages = 251–258 | doi = 10.1007/s10584-007-9319-3 }} </ref>
==NASA advanced life support== Volk developed math models for element cycling in "closed ecological life support systems" (CELSS) at NASA <ref>{{Cite journal |last=Macelroy |first=Robert D. |last2=Thompson |first2=Brad G. |last3=Tibbitts |first3=Theodore W. |last4=Volk |first4=Tyler |date=1989-12-01 |title=Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems: Natural and Artificial Ecosystems |url=https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19910015430 |language=en}}</ref> and remained active in the subfield of advanced life support from 1986 to 1998. He and colleague John Rummel developed early computer models that demonstrated the chemical transformations of crop production, human metabolism, and waste processing.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Volk | first1 = Tyler | last2 = Rummel | first2 = John D. | date = 1987 | title = Mass balances for a biological life support system simulation model | journal = Advances in Space Research | volume = 7 | issue = 4 | pages = (4)141-(4)148 | doi = 10.1016/0273-1177(87)90045-7 | pmid = 11537263 | hdl = 2060/19880002890 | hdl-access= free }}</ref> Volk later studied crop growth and development for enhanced productivity, collaborating with crop physiologists Bruce Bugbee of Utah State University, Raymond Wheeler of the NASA Kennedy Space Center,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Volk | first1 = Tyler | last2 = Bugbee | first2 = Bruce | last3 = Wheeler | first3 = Raymond M. | date = 1995 | title = An approach to crop modeling with the energy cascade | journal = Life Support & Biosphere Science | volume = 1 | pages = 119–127 }}</ref> and Ph.D. students Francesco Tubiello and James Cavazonni at NYU.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Tubiello | first1 = Francesco N. | last2 = Volk | first2 = Tyler | last3 = Bugbee | first3 = Bruce | date = 1997 | title = Diffuse light and wheat radiation-use efficiency in a controlled environment | journal = Life Support & Biosphere Science | volume = 4 | pages = 77–85 }}</ref> ==Books== Tyler Volk has authored seven books, including ''CO<sub>2</sub> Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=CO<sub>2</sub> Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge|last=Volk|first=Tyler|publisher=The MIT Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-262-22083-5|location=USA|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/corisingworldsgr0000volk}}</ref> ''What is Death?: A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=What is Death?: A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life|last=Volk|first=Tyler|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2002|isbn=0-471-37544-6|location=USA}}</ref> ''Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of the Earth|last=Volk|first=Tyler|publisher=Copernicus Books/Springer-Verlag|year=1998|isbn=0-262-72042-6|location=USA}}</ref> and ''Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind|last=Volk|first=Tyler|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1996|isbn=9780231067515}}</ref>
In 2017, he published ''Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be,''<ref>{{Cite book|title=Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be.|last=Volk|first=Tyler|publisher=Columbia University Press|date=May 2017|isbn=978-0231179607|location=USA}}</ref> which explores what Tyler Volk calls the "grand sequence", which outlines a series of evolutionary levels from elementary quanta to globalized human civilization. The book was reviewed in ''Science'' in January 2018.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Wood | first = Barry | date = 19 Jan 2018 | title = Quarks, culture, combogenesis | url = http://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2018/01/16/quarks-to-culture/ | journal = Science | volume = 359 | issue = 6373 | pages = 281 | doi = 10.1126/science.aar8252 | url-access= subscription }}</ref>
== Book reviews ==
* ''CO2 Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge'' ''—'' Review by Ning Zeng — ''Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society'' (March, 2010) — <nowiki>https://headlines.ametsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/March2010BAMS.pdf</nowiki> * ''CO2 Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge'' ''—'' Review by ''Science News'' (March 13, 20009) — https://www.sciencenews.org/article/co2-rising-worlds-greatest-environmental-challenge-tyler-volk * ''Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth'' — Review by Betty Carvellas — ''The American Biology Teacher'' (March, 1999){{Full citation needed|date=May 2026}} * ''From Quarks to Culture: How We Came To Be'' — Review by By Leon Vlieger — ''The Inquisitive Biologist'' IMarch 6, 2019) — https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2019/03/06/book-review-quarks-to-culture-how-we-came-to-be/
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * Wisconsin Public Radio — [https://www.wpr.org/shows/to-the-best-of-our-knowledge/tyler-volk-and-dorion-sagan-on-sex-and-death-or-death-and-sex “Sex and Death” or “Death and Sex”] — Anne Strainchamps interviews Tyler Volk & Dorion Sagan (4/14/2020) *Cuyamungue Institute — “[https://www.buzzsprout.com/979753/episodes/9780683-the-gaia-hypothesis-life-s-imprint-on-earth-tyler-volk The Gaia Hypothesis: Life’s Imprint on Earth]” — The Laura Lee Show — Tyler Volk (12/23/2021) *Green Street Radio — “[https://www.greenstreetnews.org/post/the-tiny-building-blocks-of-climate-change-with-dr-tyler-volk The Tiny Molecules Causing Climate Trouble]” — Patti & Doug Wood interview Tyler Volk (No Date) *Cuyamungue Institute — “[https://www.cuyamungueinstitute.com/articles-and-news/metapatterns/ Metapatterns]” — Laura Lee & Paul Robear interview Tyler Volk (2022) *Big Think — “[https://bigthink.com/videos/big-think-interview-with-tyler-volk/ Big Think Interview with Tyler Volk]" (2/22/2010''')''' *''New York Times'' — “[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/11/science/conversation-with-tyler-volk-using-flows-fluxes-demythologize-unity-life.html Using Flow and Fluxes to Demythologize the Unity of Life]” — A Conversation with Tyler Volk (8/11/1998)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Volk, Tyler}} Category:21st-century American biologists Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:New York University faculty