William Leavitt

William Leavitt is an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences contributing to the Geoscience faculty at Dartmouth College. He earned a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University in 2014, advised by David T. Johnston, an A.M. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 2009, and a B.A. in Natural Science from Hampshire College in 2006. Following his doctoral studies, Leavitt served as the Steve Fossett Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Alexander Bradley at Washington University in St. Louis from 2014 to 2016. He joined Dartmouth College in 2016 as Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences and was promoted to Associate Professor. Leavitt holds adjunct appointments as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry since 2018 and previously in the Department of Biological Sciences from 2017 to 2021. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah, with visiting scholar positions in Dartmouth's Departments of Chemistry and Earth and Planetary Science.

Leavitt's research examines the fundamental microbiological and environmental controls driving Earth's biogeochemical cycles, utilizing stable isotope geochemistry, biochemistry, and microbial physiology to constrain fluxes and transformation rates within the cycles of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Through the Leavitt Lab, he investigates microbial influences on elemental cycles using cultivation approaches including chemostats, focusing on extremophiles such as aerobic and anaerobic hyperthermophilic acidophiles, traditional and non-traditional methanogens, sulfate reducers, and aerobes. His major awards and fellowships include the Simons Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution from 2019 to 2022, American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund New Investigator grant from 2017 to 2019, the Steven Fossett Postdoctoral Fellowship from 2014 to 2016, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship from 2008 to 2011. Key publications feature "The influence of sulfate reduction rates on the Phanerozoic sulfur isotope record" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013), "Sulfur isotope fractionation by dissimilatory sulfite reductase" (Frontiers in Microbiology, 2015), "Fractionation of sulfur and hydrogen isotopes in Desulfovibrio vulgaris with perturbed DsrC expression" (FEMS Microbiology Letters, 2016), "Oxygen isotope effects during microbial sulfate reduction: Applications to sediment cell abundances" (ISME Journal, 2020), and "Microbial Methane from Methylphosphonate Isotopically Records Source" (Geophysical Research Letters, 2020).

Professional Email: wil.leavitt@dartmouth.edu