Academic
I'm a graduate student at George Mason University in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. My concentration is Earth Surface Processes and Environmental Geochemistry, and my research focus is on climatic changes and their ecological impacts. I'm working on ways to use what we know about climatic changes from Earth's history to help us see what might happen as we change the climate in the present and future, and hopefully make good policy choices using that information.
My thesis project is an example of this. I'm using information about climatic differences in the North Atlantic ocean during a warm interval around 3 million years ago (called the mid-Pliocene Warm Period) to show how decision-making can benefit from using paleoclimatic data in addition to computer model projections of the future. More specifically, I am looking at the spatial structure of differences (in ocean temperature, dissolved oxygen, and salinity) between the climate during this previous warm period and projections under future warming. We know climate models are imperfect, so what if the future climate response resembles the past warming more than model projections? Using marine ecosystem modeling of the response to both scenarios, I'm hoping to provide policymakers with a more comprehensive sense of changes we may face in a warming world.
In addition to this physical science work, I am also interested in the science of how people respond to the issue of climate change, from communications, psychological, and sociological perspectives. This has led to my participation in various projects relating to the scientific consensus on man-made global warming, principally with volunteers from the Skeptical Science team.
My thesis project is an example of this. I'm using information about climatic differences in the North Atlantic ocean during a warm interval around 3 million years ago (called the mid-Pliocene Warm Period) to show how decision-making can benefit from using paleoclimatic data in addition to computer model projections of the future. More specifically, I am looking at the spatial structure of differences (in ocean temperature, dissolved oxygen, and salinity) between the climate during this previous warm period and projections under future warming. We know climate models are imperfect, so what if the future climate response resembles the past warming more than model projections? Using marine ecosystem modeling of the response to both scenarios, I'm hoping to provide policymakers with a more comprehensive sense of changes we may face in a warming world.
In addition to this physical science work, I am also interested in the science of how people respond to the issue of climate change, from communications, psychological, and sociological perspectives. This has led to my participation in various projects relating to the scientific consensus on man-made global warming, principally with volunteers from the Skeptical Science team.
Personal
I have a wonderful wife and (relatively) new child, who keep me more happy than I probably deserve. I live in DC and grew up in a town in Virginia that was a mix of suburban and rural. When I can, I still enjoy getting outside for a hike. When I can't, I've been trying to overcome my fear of the command line, catch up on the last decade or two of board and video games, and generally survive with my sanity intact.
