• BS Cornell University (1999)
• PhD McGill University (2005)

My work explores the microbial role in wetland and forest biogeochemistry. In particular I focus on microbial responses to human-induced environmental changes that have consequences for greenhouse gas fluxes, nutrient, pollutant, and carbon dynamics, as well as broader ecosystem sustainability. Most of my current research projects are in applied settings (e.g. in managed forests) with important private sector and governmental research partners. However I have also an interest in exploring more general controls on microbial diversity in soils, links between diversity and activity, and am interested in how different soil microbial communities transform plant tissues into soil organic matter and then subsequently decompose this organic matter to mineral products, including greenhouse gases.  Field research sites span the north temperate (Great Lakes St Lawrence Forest) and boreal forests of eastern and central Canada and peatlands (globally important carbon-accumulating wetlands with organic soils) across Canada and the USA.

• Canada Research Chair in Environmental Microbiology (2013-2018)
• Dean's Excellence Award (U of T Mississauga, 2010)

• Stable isotopes reveal widespread anaerobic methane oxidation across latitude and peatland type
• Controls on bacterial and archaeal community structure and greenhouse gas production in natural, mined, and restored Canadian peatlands
• Methane fluxes measured by eddy covariance and static chamber techniques at a temperate forest in central Ontario, Canada
• Vegetation feedbacks of nutrient addition lead to a weaker carbon sink in an ombrotrophic bog
• Active methanotrophs in two contrasting North American peatland ecosystems revealed using DNA-SIP