Sean Higgins: Associate Director, Ocean Drilling

Tel: (202) 787-1651
Email: shiggins@oceanleadership.org

Sean Higgins arrived at JOI as the Associate Director for Ocean Drilling Programs (ODP) in January 2007. The responsibilities for this position consist of working with the Director, David Divins, and other JOI division/USIO management to provide fiscal and organizational planning for ODP in addition to coordinating reporting to lead agency and IODP-MI on program activities.

Prior to coming to JOI, Sean worked as an Associate Research Scientist (2004-2007) at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University as part of the Borehole Research Group, one of the two subcontractors that provides operational support for ODP. Sean has degrees in Geology from the Univ.of Nebraska-Omaha (B.S.-1986), Univ. of Maine-Orono (M.S.-1993), and Columbia University(Ph.D-2001) followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT (2001-2004). Sean's research has spanned from glacial geology/geomorphology studies in Antarctica to marine geology in North Atlantic/Arctic basins and many places in between.

Sean's other career path has included working in the environmental consulting field conducting hazardous waste investigations/cleanup all over the East Coast for more than 6 years and managing environmental geochemistry labs at Univ. of Maine, in industry and at MIT at various times throughout his career.

Sean originated in Omaha, NE where he was born, raised and encouraged to leave a small house with 5 siblings at the age of 18. Currently, Sean and his family, his wife Maureen (a cancer geneticist) and a daughter Brigid (6 yrs) live in Valhalla, NY, about 25 miles north of NYC.