Biography
I was born and raised in a small town outside of Harrisburg, PA, surrounded by forest and farms. Growing up in a rural area, we didn’t have much to do except build forts in the woods and run through the fields. When I was in elementary school, I had a decent plant and bug collection and if I wasn’t outside playing, I was always thinking about it.
That’s why when I moved to Penn State Altoona for undergrad it wasn’t a very hard decision to major in environmental science. This just cemented my fascination for nature and unlocked even more curiosities I had about our planet. I took a soil 101 course my sophomore year and a lightbulb went off, especially when we discussed the carbon cycle and how plants regulate carbon between the soil and atmosphere.
I decided to pursue soils research at the University of Pennsylvania in a Masters of Science program. My research interests became even more refined and the more I learned, the more questions I had and the more I realized how much still was to be discovered about carbon cycling in terrestrial systems, particularly with climate change altering ecosystems.
At this point I knew I had a passion for this field and wanted a career in research, so I applied to PhD programs and landed at University of Delaware where I studied coastal wetland carbon cycling. I studied how sea level rise is altering biogeochemical cycles controlling carbon storage in coastal wetland soils. Naturally, I continued similar studies during a 1-year postdoc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where I studied permafrost thaw soil biogeochemistry under climate warming. That brings me to by studies at Colorado State University, studying forest fires and soil biogeochemistry in the Borch Lab.
Project Summary
Forests protect against rapid climate change and global warming because trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Some of this carbon is stored belowground in soil from. Over time, carbon in forest soils has built up to be one of the largest active reservoirs of stored carbon, but climate change has put this carbon reservoir at risk of being emitted back into the atmosphere. During forest fires, which are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change, some of the carbon in the soil is released back to the atmosphere as the forest burns. In addition, the biology and chemistry of soil changes after a forest fire, changing how forests function and continue to store soil carbon. The significance of this project is that it will allow for a better understanding of how the forest soil carbon cycle is changed by forest fires, particularly as forest fires become more common with climate change. These findings will advance earth science and may lead to improved forest management and climate policy.
