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I am currently an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Biological Informatics at Michigan State University in the lab of Thomas Schmidt where I'm studying microbial ecology. I'm interested in
understanding how agricultural practices affect soil microbial communities and how those communities might affect changes in the production and consumption of greenhouse gases.
I work primarily at the Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research station and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center Extensive Sites,
where I collect soil samples for targeted molecular and whole genome shotgun metagenomic analyses.
I am also developing computational tools to manage and utilize this metagenomic data to address relevant questions in microbial community ecology. I developed a Replicate Filter to remove artificial replicates from 454 and Ion Torrent data.
As a part of the Sustainability group for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Center, I have been able to address questions about the effects of crop type and management on microbial communities and their methane consumption and nitrous oxide production to determine an aspect of the sustainability of that crop for the environment. |
Title photo credit: William R. Hewlett, California Academy of Sciences