Current Project

Microbial physiology in coastal oxygen minimum zones

I'm currently testing hypotheses related to microbial physiology and enzyme kinetics in marine oxygen minimum zones. I create mesocosms to simulate low oxygen regions in the lab and measure how the bacterial respiration rate, carbon signatures, and microbial community composition changes.

This research aims to help increase our ability to predict the formation and expansion of oxygen minimum zones in order to increase resilience of coastal communities. 

Past Projects

Methods development & novel bacterial  species classification 


NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This project involved testing and implementing a custom MALDI-TOF database for rapid identification of environmental bacterial samples from NASA cleanroom facilities. 

We also classified two novel species, Bacillus glennii and Bacillus saganii, originally isolated from Kennedy Space Center during the Viking mission.

Public health water quality testing following caribbean storms


University of the Virgin Islands

The goal of this project was to assess the public health risk of swimming in local bays following heavy runoff due tropical storms.