In Memoriam: Teaching Professor Jane Teranes

It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of Jane Teranes, a teaching professor and paleoclimatologist who provided a bridge for UC San Diego undergraduates to engage with Scripps Institution of Oceanography science. She died July 2, 2022, after a brief illness. She was 52.

Teranes was the architect of several programs designed to nurture college undergraduates to continue their studies in ocean, earth, and atmospheric sciences at the graduate level. Among them were the Environmental Systems (ESYS) program for which she served as program director, the Scripps Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, the Scripps Geosciences Educational Opportunities (Scripps-GEO) program, which links community college students to Scripps science education through on-campus internships, and the Teaching Climate Across the Curriculum program, which provided faculty across the university the scholarly and financial resources to add climate-related units to their courses. In the case of SURF, Teranes revived Scripps’ participation in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program after a long absence.

Teranes was born Nov. 10, 1969, in Detroit, Mich. and grew up in Grosse Pointe, Mich. She attended the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Mich. as a high school student before receiving a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College in Ohio and finally a Ph.D. from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland in 1998. She returned to the United States to serve as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan before coming to Scripps Oceanography as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of geoscientist Chris Charles in November 1999.

In 2003, Teranes was hired as associate director of ESYS, a newly launched environmental major at UC San Diego that was designed to be interdisciplinary, folding in expertise from departments across campus including chemistry, Scripps Oceanography, biology, economics, political science and engineering.

Colleagues have called Teranes a “once-in-a-lifetime” type of person for her ability to interact with and guide students, many of whom have gone on to pursue cross-disciplinary careers ranging from SeaWorld to the U.S. Senate.

Teranes went on to helm the ESYS program, overseeing its transition from management under the School of Physical Sciences to Scripps Oceanography in 2017. She also worked with colleagues across campus to create a new climate change studies minor, which debuted at Scripps during the 2019-20 academic year. The minor is designed to help students from any major develop knowledge of climate science, understand the human and social dimensions of climate impacts, and find opportunities to develop and implement solutions.

Among her many roles at Scripps, Teranes served as the institution’s first teaching professor. Through this position and its focus on undergraduate education, she taught courses on paleoclimate, climate change, and environmental systems.

In a video produced in 2019 by a group of Scripps MAS MBC students, Teranes spoke about her shift to working primarily with undergraduates and her work spearheading an interdisciplinary climate change curriculum.

Teranes played a major role in shaping and leading the SURF program, which relaunched at Scripps in 2011 after a long hiatus. Funded largely by the NSF Division of Ocean Sciences, this summer program engages undergraduates from around the country in cutting-edge research alongside a scientist mentor at Scripps. Teranes assisted geoscientist Lisa Tauxe with writing the initial proposal, first serving as co-principal investigator and academic coordinator and then taking over as principal investigator and program director in 2014.

Over the past decade, Teranes oversaw more than 170 SURF students who participated in the program, with 75 percent of the fellows coming from demographic groups that are traditionally underrepresented in ocean and earth sciences, and many continuing on as admitted graduate students.

Teranes also lent her expertise to help develop the curriculum for Bending the Curve, a University of California-led course series that empowers anyone to help find solutions to the climate change crisis. Additionally, she supported other programs across UC San Diego, leading the Scripps-GEO program that officially launched in January 2022, serving as chair of the Undergraduate Council, collaborating on a DEI program, and working towards a new climate crisis requirement, among other efforts.

Teranes is survived by husband David Holway of San Diego; mother Barbara Teranes of Grosse Pointe Mich.; brothers Rick Teranes and Dan Teranes of Grosse Pointe, Mich.; sister Amy Snow of Pacifica, Calif.; son Lorenzo Pellecchia, 19, of San Diego, a student at UC San Diego; daughter Marcella Pellechia, 17; stepdaughter Maia Payne, 26, of Berkeley, Calif.; and her dog, Ryker.

A memorial service will take place at 5 p.m. Aug. 22, 2022, at the Martin Johnson House on the Scripps Oceanography campus.

Members of the Scripps Oceanography community are invited to add tributes to Jane Teranes. Please submit them to scrippsnews@ucsd.edu.

Elizabeth H. Simmons
Executive Vice Chancellor

Margaret S. Leinen
Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences

Sarah Gille
SIO Department Chair and Deputy Director for Education