Interests:

I am interested how carbon cycles in the Earth system.   My expertise is in using carbon isotopes (14C and 13C) to trace carbon through the Earth system.  My research focuses on using organic geochemistry techniques to characterize carbon within the Earth system to further our understanding of processes that constrain carbon storage and turnover.   I am particularly interested in what controls carbon storage, the response of carbon pools to global change and how these responses may alter climate.   

CURRENT WORK:

My postdoctoral work is investigating the carbon cycling of endolithic communities, or communities that grow in the cavities of porous rocks.   These communities have been identified in mid-latitude and polar deserts.  I  am investigating the correlation between community structure and turnover of mid-latitude and polar desert endolithic communities.  This work, currently funded by the Canadian Astrobiology Training Program and McMaster University’s Origins Institute, will contribute to our understanding of the parameters controlling the diversity and life cycle of endolithic communities.  Micro-organisms from terrestrial permafrost and deserts are valuable model organisms when considering the possibility of microbial life in extraterrestrial ecosystems.  Apart from being particularly relevant to astrobiology research, it is also relevant to the large carbon reservoirs in the Earth’s disappearing permafrost.

PREVIOUS WORK:

My PhD research with Ellen Druffel at UC Irvine focused on black carbon, characterized as highly aromatic carbon typically formed by burning, within marine dissolved organic carbon.  I adapted an analytical technique used to quantify black carbon soils for compound specific isotopic analysis of black carbon in marine dissolved organic carbon.  Due to the small size of my marine samples I quantified the extraneous carbon added during preparation of samples for radiocarbon analysis.  Finally, from a suite of ocean and riverine influenced locations, I quantified the mass and radiocarbon composition of the black carbon.    The black carbon extracted from this suite of samples is the most radiocarbon deplete compounds extracted from dissolved organic carbon to date.

Prior to my PhD I worked with William Miller at Dalhousie University on characterizing and modeling the photochemical transformation of marine coloured dissolved organic matter.