Biography:

I am an American Postdoctoral researcher here at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris where I also did my PhD. My current work focuses the interactions that occur between microorganisms and the basalts that they live in with a focus on how microbial life affects the carbonation reaction. This work builds upon my PhD work where I assessed ability of basalts to act as a habitat for microbial life and am investigated how microorganisms influence the alteration of crystalline basalts using a combined approach of experimentation in the lab and observation of natural samples. I rely on X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) techniques including grating-based imaging to identify mineral interfaces available for colonization, and to observe basalt alteration.

Reconstruction of pore space (yellow) within a basaltic rock and material that is present in situ before (red) and after (blue) reactive percolation with a CO2-rich fluid

Techniques:

• Synchrotron Radiation X-ray CT
• Grating-based CT
• micro-CT
• Petrographic Microscopy
• Raman Spectroscopy
• SEM

Funding, grants, and awards:

• ABYSS ITN Early Career Researcher (PhD) Fellowship (12/2014-11/2017)
• EGU Outstanding Student Poster Award: General Assembly 2015
• Deep Carbon Observatory Deep Life Modeling and Visualization PhD Fellowship (2016-2017): $27,000
• IPGP International Mobility Grant 2017: € 1941

Outreach:

Former webmaster and contributor to  SeaRocks Blog, a scientific outreach blog describing the work we do with the ABYSS ITN.

Former contributor to the EGU Biogeosciences division blog.

I participated in the ABYSS ITN Fête de la Science outreach day in October 2015.