Associate Professor of Chemical Oceanography
Earth Sciences
Assistant Director, Ocean Process Analysis Laboratory
I am a marine biogeochemist meaning I work to uncover and quantify the interrelated chemical, biological, and physical processes occurring within the ocean that result in transformations of the important bioactive elements carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and oxygen. My focus is understanding the production, transformation, and fate of biologically produced organic matter and the related cycling of chemical nutrients in the sea. My research program studies these processes at the largest scales – the global ocean, annual to millennial. I am particularly interested in studying the low nutrient ecosystems of the ocean subtropics. Covering 60% of the Earth’s surface they are the world’s largest biome, responsible for a quarter of all biological productivity. My group uses a variety of techniques and tools including collection of new chemical observations at sea, development of ocean biogeochemistry within Earth System Models, laboratory experiments, and analysis of data from autonomous platforms such as BGC-Argo.