Holy Cross Professor Eager to Extend Reseach and Teaching Efforts to Arctic Ecosystems

I am a stream biogeochemist and ecologist who has studied the fate of terrestrial-derived organic matter and aquatic primary production in a variety of aquatic ecosystems spanning from small headwater streams to large estuaries. I have instructed courses in Freshwater Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, and Environmental Biology at Holy Cross College annually since 2002. The primary objective of my current research is to identify linkages between forest and stream ecosystem fluxes of energy and nutrients at a wide range of temporal scales, from hourly to annual and longer timescales. Specifically, I seek to identify factors controlling C, N, and P transfers from a variety of forested watersheds to coupled headwater streams throughout diverse hydrologic conditions. This collaborative-research program integrates three important frontier areas of ecosystem science and global change biology: 1) defining linkages between coupled biogeochemical cycles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems with respect to carbon and nutrient losses, 2) delineating biogeochemical mechanisms resulting in periodic and continuous carbon and nutrient losses from terrestrial ecosystems over a wide range of temporal scales, and 3) forecasting how compositional and hydrological changes in terrestrial ecosystems will impact adjacent and downstream aquatic ecosystems. The Polaris Project will allow me to greatly expand existing research and teaching efforts to include under studied Arctic ecosystems that are critical to our understanding of global terrestrial and marine ecosystem linkages.

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