Earth’s climate is warming at a pace and magnitude unprecedented in recent times, with profound consequences for terrestrial ecology and hydrology. My research aims to contribute to our understanding of future global change by examining Cenozoic changes in climate, ecology, and the carbon cycle. Fossil chemical signatures—biomarkers—and their carbon isotope ratios integrate and track the ancient carbon cycle and provide unique paleoecological information in sediments where other proxies are not often preserved. The combination of biomarkers and carbon isotopes provides new insights into the feedbacks between global change, terrestrial ecology, and the carbon cycle.

Research interests

My research interests are primarily in biogeochemistry, global climate change, organic geochemistry, stable isotope biogeochemistry, paleoclimatology, paleoecology, stable isotope ecology, limnology

My current research is focusing on what controls Isotopic sitgnatures of terrestrial organic carbon on geologic timescales with specific focus on the following areas:

Global patterns in plant carbon isotopes and implications for interpreting global change

Plant specific biomarkers (terpenoids) for reconstructing paleoecology – modern and ancient calibration studies

Controls on carbon isotope signatures of terrestrial organic carbon using biomarker distrbutions and biomarker stable istopes in the Bighorn Basin (WY, USA) during the Paleocene and Eocene