Research overview:
Research statement: Use interdisciplinary and microbially informed science to develop a mechanistic understanding of the physical and biogeochemical drivers of environmentally relevant contaminant transformation in aquatic ecosystems to enable modeling, devise management strategies, and predict the effects of local, regional, and global changes.
Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California - Davis in Dr. Brett Poulin's lab. My current research focus is on the microbes that mediate mercury methylation in aquatic ecosystems. To do this, I integrate meta 'omic sequencing data with biogeochemical measurements, functional assays for microbial community activity, and enriched isotope Hg-methylation assays. This work has highlighted how we still know so little about basic microbial community metabolism in complex communities and ecosystems. My current work seeks to address the complexities of community metabolism and its role in MeHg production.
In my new role as faculty at UW-Milwaukee in the School of Freshwater Science, I will aim to build on this approach in several ways:
1. Develop field sites and studies that are conducive to long-term study and identifying key parameters controlling MeHg formation.
2. Explore new microbial methods to enable a more detailed mechanistic understanding of the microbial community impacts on methylation.
3. Implement culture-based methods to improve our ecological understanding of the role of MeHg formation in microbial physiology.
4. Expand this approach to focus on additional contaminants, particularly legacy contaminants of concern in the Great Lakes and their watersheds.
For a complete list of my publications, check out my Google scholar page.
For a review of my thesis work, focusing on three published articles, see here.
In my new role as faculty at UW-Milwaukee in the School of Freshwater Science, I will aim to build on this approach in several ways:
1. Develop field sites and studies that are conducive to long-term study and identifying key parameters controlling MeHg formation.
2. Explore new microbial methods to enable a more detailed mechanistic understanding of the microbial community impacts on methylation.
3. Implement culture-based methods to improve our ecological understanding of the role of MeHg formation in microbial physiology.
4. Expand this approach to focus on additional contaminants, particularly legacy contaminants of concern in the Great Lakes and their watersheds.
For a complete list of my publications, check out my Google scholar page.
For a review of my thesis work, focusing on three published articles, see here.
