I’m a geochemist with interests in a variety of problems related to the rock record, microbiology, and biogeochemical cycles in the present and past. My approach to scientific problems is centered around linking experiments and physically based models to natural observations in an integrated fashion and, when necessary, developing new methods and techniques. My lab is centered around mass spectrometric measurements of experimental and environmental samples. I addition to being a professor at UC Berkeley, I also am a Faculty Scientist in the Earth & Envrionmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Prior to coming to UC Berkeley in 2017, I was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton. I received my PhD from Caltech and AB from Harvard College.
My interests are currently centered on the following questions.
(1) The application of carbonate clumped-isotope paleothermometry to solve geological problems including the formation of carbonates during crustal alteration reactions off mid-ocean ridge flanks, the temperature history of the Neogene ocean, terrestiral climate over the Cenozoic, and controls on carbonate crystal growth and recrystallization.
(2) Understanding on what controls the carbon, hydrogen, and clumped isotopic composition of thermogneic, biogenic, and abiotic methane. This inludes experimental, theoretical, and field-based research projects.
(3) The devlopement of a wood-based clumped isotope proxy using the isotopic composition of methoxy groups in lignin.
(4) The study of the O2 cycle in the present and past and its influence on the composition of igneous rocks.
(5) Controls on the 17O composition of altered igneous rocks and the ocean.
Please see my research website for more information including all publications.
