I am a sea-going trace metal biogeochemist and am currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Hawai’a at Mānoa with Dr. Nick Hawco working on the Schmidt Ocean Institute-funded SUBSEA project. I received my PhD in 2025 from University of Southern California, advised by Dr. James Moffett.

TL;DR my research

Most of my work focuses on the distributions and speciation of iron, a limiting micronutrient in much of the world’s oceans. Just like we as humans need iron for hemoglobin in our blood to bind oxygen (and thus allow us to breathe), everything in the ocean needs iron. However, iron is mainly insoluble (not biologically available) in the presence of oxygen– similar to how a nail exposed to water becomes rusty quickly. I have become really interested in understanding different sources of iron to the world’s oceans. My Ph.D. work focused on benthic sources of iron while my post-doc work will mainly focus on atmospheric.

I like to think about the ocean as a puzzle (it helps that I love puzzles…). The more components from the four major sub-disciplines of oceanography (biological, chemical, geological, and physical), that we have, the better we can assemble the “puzzle” of oceanography. As a trace metal biogeochemist, I try to contextualize the geochemistry of the ocean in terms of how physical ocean dynamics and microbes are influencing distributions and speciation. Using the distributions of other elements (both biologically-active and semi-conservative) can further help us constrain influences on more biologically-relevant metals. Science doesn’t happen solo; I have been fortunate to have many amazing collaborators along the way.

My current project

I am currently working to understand differences in the cycling of trace metals within different layers of the euphotic zone through high-resolution sampling for water column (dissolved and particulate) and sediment trap (sinking particulate) samples. The lower portion of the euphotic zone is particularly understudied and underrepresented in global ocean models. Currently, our fieldwork is focusing on understanding the dynamics at Hawaiian Ocean Time-series Station ALOHA. In the future, we will be sailing aboard the R/V Falkor Too to the South Atlantic.

Ph.D. Work

My dissertation, entitled Going with the flow: constraining the lateral advection of redox-active metals from continental margins under differing oxygen regimes, focused on inputs and horizontal transport of trace metals under differing oxygen concentrations. Globally, areas of low oxygen are anticipated to increase in severity and magnitude due to climate change. Historically, inputs from continental margins have been underlooked in comparison to atmospheric ones. In sum, I focused on 3 distinctive regions: the Arabian Sea (home of one of 3 global oxygen deficient zones where oxygen concentrations reach 0), the Oregon coast (a seasonally hypoxic region), and the Amundsen, Sea Antarctica (well-oxygenated). This included two cruises off of the coast of Oregon in 2021 and one (73!) day cruise to the Amundsen Sea from 2023-2024 as a part of the GEOTRACES GP-17 ANT expedition. Most importantly, none of this work would have been possible without funding from the National Science Foundation.

The Arabian Sea
This work was done on archived samples and published in Chemical Geology. I combined distributions of semi-conservative rare earth elements, manganese, and iron with an understanding of the physical water dynamics to understand different inputs into the system: benthic, aeolian, and hydrothermal.

The Oregon coast
This work is currently in preparation for publication and has benefitted greatly from collaborating with modellers in the Bianchi lab. As part of the Iron Transport Shuttle (FeTSh), we completed two cruises to contrast between spring and the hypoxic summer seasons. However, 2021 was the earliest onset of hypoxia in the last 35 years to the region. The work I completed here revealed complex seasonal dynamics, due to riverine and hypoxia influences, and offshore transport being dominated by particles.

The Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
The Amundsen Sea is a polynya, a seasonally ice-free hotspot of primary production in coastal Antarctic waters. This primary production is fueled by continual inputs of iron to the surface ocean, whereas the surrounding Southern Ocean is largely iron limited. During this cruise, I performed shipboard analyses of Fe(II) in water column, sediment porewater, and sea ice samples. Fe(II) is the most bio-available form of iron, but is largely absent in the world’s oceans due to quick oxidation to Fe(III). Notably, this sampling consisted of the first application of a chemiluminscent Fe(II) detection method to sediment porewater and sea ice samples. This work is currently in preparation for publication

Side project(s)
I’ve always been interested in trying to link microbial biogeography and trace metal distributions. During the Oregon field sampling campaigns, we were able to take opportunistic samples for microbial DNA extractions. I am currently working through the metagenome data to try to incorporate that “biological” part of the oceanography puzzle to my projects.

Human outside of work

Outside of work, I am a proud cat mom to 3, and enjoy reading, hiking, travelling, and amateur photography. I am passionate about equality in general and within the sciences, and demystifying grad school.