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I'm interested in climate change, biogeochemistry, land management and forest ecology. I typically study land ecosystems using experiments, syntheses, and modeling studies. I started as a forest ecologist, and in recent years have become more interested in human effects on land carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services. I've worked in mid-latitude temperate ecosystems, high-latitude Arctic ecosystems, mediterranean forests, and agricultural fields.
I received my PhD from Boston University in 2015 where I studied the timing and amount of aboveground plant carbon allocated to roots as biomass growth and turnover, respiration, and exudation. An early meta-analysis on root phenology was published in New Phytologist. The majority of the empirical measurements at Harvard Forest are published in Ecosphere with the data itself accessible in the Harvard Forest LTER Data Archive: HF278. As part of this work I also developed the DAMM-MCNiP model, a microbial C and N cycling model, to make seasonal predictions of heterotrophic respiration. The repository can be found here and is published in JGR Biogeosciences with interesting follow up work here.
While living in Boston, I was also a member of Luminarium Dance Company, where I helped to run classes and performed in choreographic works that merged scientific concepts with dance.
From 2015-2018 and 2019-2021, I was a postdoc at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Laboratoire de Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, respectively. During this time, I developed the Millennial model, a modeling framework with flexible soil pools, to assimilate measurements of different soil fractions from a globally-distributed dataset of sites. The development and evaluation of Millennial V2 builds upon the original version 1. I also worked on the microbial soil model ReSOM, estimates of soil sequestration capacity, and effects of climate change on simulated crop yields.
While living in California, I volunteered for the ClimateMusic Project, which uses music and art to communicate climate science. Throughout my career, I have participated in educational advocacy, community engagement, and activism. From 2022-2023, I was an Associate Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where I was fired for engaging in climate activism. You can read my guest essay in the New York Times describing the experience. In 2023, I joined the Board of Directors of the Climate Emergency Fund, where I currently serve as Board President. In spring 2024, I was a resident at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. I still work for traditional research institutions, but consider the Ronin Institute to be an academic home whose values and organizing principles resonate deeply with me.
