I am a marine community ecologist, and stable isotope biogeochemist. I seek to characterize (1) the patterns of energy flow in marine food webs, (2) the processes governing these patterns across space and through time, and (3) the role of humans within historical and modern coastal ecosystems. To this end I integrate biology, geochemistry, and archaeology, and my work spans broad ecological, temporal, and geographic scales.
Over the course of my dissertation studies, I explored the energetics of Pacific kelp forests through stable isotope analysis of individual amino acids. I found that modern nearshore food webs are more reliant on energetic subsidies from benthic algae than previously thought, and that the stability of coastal ecosystems may be mediated by intraspecific variation.
As a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, I am exploring the socio-ecological dynamics of coastal ecosystems in the past. Specifically, I am investigating the historical connectivity among benthic and pelagic environments, and the role of Indigenous peoples in local food webs prior to European contact. These works offer unique insights by identifying environmental and cultural contexts where human harvesting of marine resources has been sustainable over long time scales, as well as providing pre-industrial ecological baselines for conservation efforts.
Over the course of my dissertation studies, I explored the energetics of Pacific kelp forests through stable isotope analysis of individual amino acids. I found that modern nearshore food webs are more reliant on energetic subsidies from benthic algae than previously thought, and that the stability of coastal ecosystems may be mediated by intraspecific variation.
As a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, I am exploring the socio-ecological dynamics of coastal ecosystems in the past. Specifically, I am investigating the historical connectivity among benthic and pelagic environments, and the role of Indigenous peoples in local food webs prior to European contact. These works offer unique insights by identifying environmental and cultural contexts where human harvesting of marine resources has been sustainable over long time scales, as well as providing pre-industrial ecological baselines for conservation efforts.
