The goals of our research are twofold.

First,we seek to understand why the ¹⁴C age of marine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is thousands of years old, despite evidence that most of it is produced in the surface ocean during photosynthesis. Is black carbon, produced on land, a significant source of old oceanic DOC?

Our research focuses on how terrestrial ecosystems work, with an emphasis on what controls the exchanges of gases and energy between land surfaces and the atmosphere. This research is relevant to several environmental problems, including understanding changes in climate and global biogeochemistry. Our approach is interdisciplinary, borrowing techniques and ideas from a range of academic disciplines including plant physiology, community and ecosystem ecology, hydrology, micrometeorology, environmental physics, and biogeochemistry.

I am an oceanographer interested in the role of marine biota in global biogeochemical cycles and Earth's climate system. My research focuses on understanding how marine phytoplankton and other ocean biota influence the cycling of key elements (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, iron) in the oceans, and on the biogeochemical links between the ocean, atmosphere, and land through atmospheric transport and riverine runoff.

We are interested in the ocean's role in the climate of the Earth. The ocean plays a determining role in the variability of the climate system on inter-annual to millennial timescales. We use global observations and a hierarchy of ocean models together with advanced computational and mathematical techniques to study the ocean. Our current research is directed in three broad areas:

1. the surface-to-surface transport and ventilation of ocean water masses
2. inter-annual to decadal variability of the ocean's wind-driven circulation
3. global ocean biogeochemical cycles

The oceans produce a diverse array of trace gases that affect the chemistry of the atmosphere and the climate system. Our goal is to understand what controls the production, emissions, and atmospheric chemistry of oceanic trace gases. We develop trace gas detectors, collect field data from islands and ships and use computer models to simulate natural processes.

The UC Irvine IRMS Facility in the School of Physical Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences houses a variety of instrumentation to prepare and analyze gases, organic matter, inorganic samples, and water for stable isotope analysis. IRMS are used to measure the ratio of rare, heavy isotopes to common, light isotopes. There are five IRMS at UC Irvine to measure stable isotope ratios of the light elements: Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Hydrogen.