Peter Berg earned his PhD degree at the Technical University of Denmark in 1988 with specialties in mathematical/numerical modelling and time series analyses. After working as a Scientist at the Danish National Environmental Research Institute on numerical modelling of nitrogen leaching from agricultural farmland, he relocated to the University of Virginia in 1996 and joined the faculty in the Department of Environmental Sciences.
Berg has since then focused on measuring and modelling biogeochemical processes and fluxes in marine and freshwater benthic environments. This includes pioneering the aquatic eddy covariance technique for measuring oxygen fluxes between the seafloor and the water column above. Berg published the first paper on this novel non-invasive approach in 2003, and since then, he has worked almost exclusively on disseminating the technique by developing new and better sensors, teaching and training numerous research groups, post-docs, and students, and improving the numerical tools used to extract and analyze fluxes from measured data. Berg has published more than 55 papers on the technique that is now widely accepted as the best approach for measuring benthic oxygen fluxes at the seafloor under naturally varying environmental conditions. Its adaptations and applications by many research groups has led to critically important new biogeochemical insights on the functioning of different aquatic benthic ecosystems where traditional flux methods are challenging or impossible to apply.
In recognition of this contribution, now stretching more than 20 years, Berg was elected to the 2016 Class of Fellows of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and recently elected as the 2024 AGU William. S and Carelyn Y. Reeburgh Lecture Honoree.