As a global change ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist, I use theory, experimentation, and quantitative methods to understand ecosystem responses to natural and anthropogenic environmental change. Understanding and predicting the response of ecosystems to environmental changes is crucial for sustaining and managing important ecosystems.

I am fascinated by how and why ecosystem properties and processes respond to global changes and how these responses may feed back to amplify or diminish these changes. Because predicting and managing the effects of such changes depends on understanding and accurately depicting ecosystem processes, I combine experimental, synthetic and quantitative approaches to develop models and test hypotheses about what drives fundamental ecosystem processes like microbial respiration (decomposition).