About

Stephen J. Burns is a professor in the Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He joined the department in January 2001 after spending 11 years at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Burns holds a PhD from Duke University, earned in 1987, and has a background that includes an M.S. from the University of North Carolina and an undergraduate degree from Rice University. His research focuses on developing records of climate change on the continents, with particular emphasis on understanding the causes of climate variability across different timescales. He specializes in analyzing speleothems—cave deposits such as stalagmites and stalactites—which serve as archives of past climate signals through oxygen and carbon isotope ratios and trace element compositions, effectively functioning as underground ice cores. Burns has conducted extensive research in the tropics, producing climate records that extend back hundreds of thousands of years, and has studied the relationship between climate and cultural or environmental changes in regions such as Oman, Yemen, Brazil, and the Peruvian Andes. His current projects include investigating climate variability in the Yucatan region of Mexico, Madagascar, and Southeast Asia, often in collaboration with other researchers. Burns has contributed to the understanding of paleoclimate dynamics, including the history of the South American Monsoon, the Holocene climate variability, and the impact of climate change on past megafauna extinctions.

Research topics

• Geography
• Ecology
• Oceanography
• Political Science
• Geology
• Climatology
• Physical geography
• History
• Archaeology
• Environmental science
• Paleontology
• Ancient history

Selected publications

• Effects of non-invasive spinal cord stimulation on autonomic function in individuals with subacute spinal cord injury: A pilot clinical trial protocol

  PLoS ONE · 2026-04-20

  articleOpen access

  INTRODUCTION: Spinal cord injury (SCI) at or above the thoracic sixth spinal cord level disrupts descending sympathetic and parasympathetic control, leading to severe autonomic dysfunctions including cardiovascular and pelvic organ function. These complications adversely affect the quality of life and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality after SCI. Transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) may offer therapeutic benefits for these functions. The safety of tSCS in subacute SCI, however, remains unknown. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the feasibility of tSCS for autonomic recovery in individuals with subacute SCI within six months since injury. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We designed a two-phase clinical protocol consisting of a pilot randomized controlled trial conducted during inpatient rehabilitation (Project A), followed by a post-discharge outpatient phase with a single-arm quasi-experimental design (Project B). In Project A, 26 adults with cervical or upper thoracic (≥T6) American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) A-C SCI are planned to be enrolled and randomly assigned to receive tSCS or sham stimulation for five sessions (up to 90 minutes each) in parallel with standard care. Following discharge from inpatient rehabilitation, eligible participants will be offered continuation in Project B. New eligible participants who have not participated in Project A will also be recruited into Project B. They will receive 18 tSCS sessions over six weeks in the laboratory setting. Primary outcomes focus on feasibility, including recruitment, retention, and stimulation-related adverse events. Clinical outcomes will be collected at baseline, after each intervention, and at six months and one-year post-injury. Feasibility results will be summarized descriptively, and exploratory analyses of autonomic outcomes, including cardiovascular and pelvic organ function, will provide preliminary estimates of autonomic responses. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study has been approved by the University of Washington Institutional Review Board. Written informed consent will be obtained from all participants. Results will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals and shared with the scientific/clinical communities and individuals with lived experience of SCI. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06540859.

  PublisherDOI

• Book Reviews

  Modern Believing · 2026-01-22

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Book Reviews

  Modern Believing · 2025-06-06

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Linkages between Caribbean hydroclimate, atmospheric CO2, and methane production on orbital to millennial timescales

  Quaternary Science Reviews · 2025-12-03

  articleOpen access

  We present the oldest speleothem isotope record from Central America and the Caribbean, a high-resolution stalagmite (“Katún”) spanning discontinuously ∼198–322 ka BP, that documents hydroclimate variability across glacial–interglacial and millennial timescales. Katún δ 18 O covaries significantly with atmospheric CO 2 and CH 4 , and multivariate analyses show that CO 2 + CH 4 together explain more variance in δ 18 O than either gas alone. Consistent with a CO 2 -mediated SST mechanism, Katún δ 18 O correlates with tropical Atlantic and eastern Pacific SST reconstructions, indicating that radiative forcing influenced Caribbean precipitation primarily through tropical surface warming. At millennial scales, Katún δ 18 O tracks North Atlantic variability: it aligns with CH 4 peaks associated with Greenland D–O cycles and with detrital proxies of Heinrich-type ice-rafting, implicating AMOC-paced ITCZ shifts and SST-driven convection as key controls. A weak Katún–Cariaco Mo relationship highlights proxy sensitivities and argues against ITCZ migration as the sole driver. In contrast to Asian monsoon archives, Katún shows little precessional insolation imprint, emphasizing the dominance of internal ocean–atmosphere dynamics (AMOC, SSTs) in regulating Caribbean hydroclimate and modulating tropical wetland methane emissions during MIS 7–9. • A new stalagmite (MIS 7–9) from the Yucatan Peninsula was analyzed. • CO 2 drives Caribbean hydroclimate via tropical SST on orbital timescales. • Millennial Caribbean hydroclimate shifts reflect AMOC strength and ITCZ movement. • Global methane variability ties to rainfall-driven tropical wetlands production.

  PublisherDOI

• Acknowledging First Peoples

  Black Theology · 2025-01-02

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• ‘The Congregation Is Not an Audience’:

  2025-06-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Thinking Around the ‘Hierarchical Array’: Ecumenical Explorations

  2025-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Preparing for At-Scale Deployment of Fusion Energy: Novel Licensing Pathways

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Book Reviews

  Modern Believing · 2025-09-21

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Patterns of late Holocene and historical extinctions on Madagascar

  Cambridge Prisms Extinction · 2025-01-01

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Around 1000 years ago, Madagascar experienced the collapse of populations of large vertebrates that ultimately resulted in many species going extinct. The factors that led to this collapse appear to have differed regionally, but in some ways, key processes were similar across the island. This review evaluates four hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the loss of large vertebrates on Madagascar: Overkill, aridification, synergy, and subsistence shift. We explore regional differences in the paths to extinction and the significance of a prolonged extinction window across the island. The data suggest that people who arrived early and depended on hunting, fishing, and foraging had little effect on Madagascar's large endemic vertebrates. Megafaunal decline was triggered initially by aridification in the driest bioclimatic zone, and by the arrival of farmers and herders in the wetter bioclimatic zones. Ultimately, it was the expansion of agropastoralism across both wet and dry regions that drove large endemic vertebrates to extinction everywhere.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• P2C2:Collaborative Research: A Speleothem Study of the Paleoclimatology of the Yucatan Peninsula: Testing Modes and Causes of Variability in the North American Tropics

  NSF · $148k · 2015–2018

• History of the Monsoon in Arabia, a Speleothem-based Paleoclimate Study

  NSF · $244k · 2002–2005

• Collaborative Research: P2C2--Madagascar Caves and Paleoclimate (MADCAP), Investigating Climate Variability in the Southern Hemisphere of the Western Indian Ocean

  NSF · $492k · 2017–2021

• P2C2: Holocene and Late Pleistocene Climate Change in Tropical South America Based on Speleothems from the Peruvian Andes

  NSF · $292k · 2010–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Dominik Fleitmann

  66 shared

• Albert Matter

  University of Bern

  64 shared

• Hai Cheng

  Xi'an Jiaotong University

  43 shared

• Augusto Mangini

  Heidelberg University

  33 shared

• J. H. Kramers

  32 shared

• Nick Scroxton

  National University of Ireland, Maynooth

  30 shared

• David McGee

  29 shared

• Manfred Mudelsee

  Climate Risk Analysis (Germany)

  27 shared

Labs

• Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate SciencesPI

Education

• Ph.D., Geology

  Duke University