Coastal and Marine Laboratory

Research and Professional Interests

Coastlines are globally important environments for the sequestration and exchange of carbon and nutrients between oceans, continents, and the atmosphere. My research is primarily focused on coastal ecosystems that include mangroves, marshes, seagrass meadows, oyster reefs, and muddy or sandy shorelines.

I seek to answer research questions related to the origins, development, and transformation of these ecosystems, especially in regard to their fate in the context of global change. The tools that I use include physical and radiologic techniques for measuring sediment accumulation and diagenesis, field surveys, soil and water quality analyses, stable isotopes, minor/trace elements, greenhouse gas fluxes, and indicators of microbial activity.

Ongoing research interests include:

• drivers of spatial and temporal variability of accumulation rates for stable and unstable soil constituents including organic and carbonate carbon, and macro-nutrients
• the fate of coastal soils and the ecosystems that they support, where rich stocks of organic and/or carbonate carbon are susceptible to loss via different mechanisms stemming from global change-driven sea-level rise and habitat switching or alteration
• the importance of organic matter for vertical development and biogeochemical processing of soils in carbonate platform wetlands that have minimal inputs of terrigenous mineral sediment
• the biogeochemical impacts that occur following the encroachment of carbonate-rich substrates by coastal macrophytes or allochthonous organic matter
• the role of large tropical storms on coastal ecosystem functioning

Education

Ph.D. University of South Florida (2017)
M.Sc. University of South Florida (2012)
B.A. Wheaton College (1999)

Research Areas & Interests

Biogeochemistry, Geomorphology, Ecology, Sediment Dynamics

Professional Profiles

ORCID  GoogleScholar  ResearchGate  Publons