What are your major research interests?
My current research is focused primarily on investigations of interactions between microbiota and their physical/geological environment, and on the co-evolution of biological and geochemical cycles on Earth and beyond. These investigations span a range of scales from the field to the cell to the molecular level, with special emphasis on enzymatic reaction mechanisms.
Did you always know you wanted to go into science?
Yes, but there was an initial challenge to choose an area of science on which I could focus my interests and abilities. This challenge was met in my senior year of high school when I was first introduced to geology. Geology beautifully combined all the scientific disciplines that I loved-biology, chemistry and physics — applied to the integrated study of the entire earth! What more could I ask?
What drew you to Yale University?
My passion for biochemistry combined with a Yale-Bateman postdoctoral fellowship award drew me to Yale where I planned to pursue research with the renowned biochemist and phosphoenzyme expert Joseph Coleman. I later joined the faculty about one year before the department began a major transition and renewal which culminated in a massive hiring effort that added nine new faculty members.
What advice would you give to students of the biogeosciences?
Obtain broad but rigorous interdisciplinary training and a global perspective, including aspects of environmental policy and management. Also, consider careers beyond academia.
If you could only research one topic for the rest of you life — what would it be?
It would be the absolute death of me! One of the things I most enjoy about being a geochemist, is the uniquely cosmopolitan nature of the field. Because the physical world is composed of atoms and molecules in continuous motion and undergoing myriad reactions, chemistry is involved in most processes at some level. Geochemistry is anything but restricted. To the contrary, I find it quite “liberating.”
How do you contain what seems to be such a broad field?
Biogeochemistry and earth science are intrinsically broad and multidisciplinary, but not unfocused or uncontained. It is usually the particular system or process under study which brings together broad but inextricably connected themes and approaches to bear on the complex problems that define biogeochemistry.
How do you have time to eat?
As I am sure almost any junior faculty can tell you, the question is rather what you no longer have time to do after making the transition from graduate student or postdoctoral fellow to tenure-track faculty. What I miss most are my purely non-scientific hobbies, in particular being able to devote the necessary time in the gym for amateur bodybuilding. There are classes to teach, lectures to give, meetings to attend, endless exciting research … and so little time.
What do you do when you aren’t doing geomicrobiology?
Biogeochemistry of course! My research vacillates between the two closely-related disciplines, sometimes leaning more toward studies of microbial/cellular processes in laboratory cultures, and other times focusing more on investigations of the geochemical fingerprints of microbial metabolism as recorded by sediments, porewaters and the geologic rock record.
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