What research interests me?
Throughout my undergraduate profession, I spent summers working on projects that were being used to assess the extent of wetland restoration at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. During this time, I was introduced to the joys of academic research.
My graduate career at the University of Kentucky was focused on a stream restoration project, which was aimed in part, on the rate and extent to which the hyporheic zone (saturated subsurface sediment on the sides and below the stream) develops.
At present, my PhD career at Penn State is focused on using multiple methods to understand how hydrological processes control fluxes of nutrients (inorganic and organic nitrogen and carbon) along hillslopes and near-stream areas. This research is geared towards improving our understanding of the coupling of nutrient dynamics and water movement so to advance our ability to produce better models and enable us to address some of the most important societal problems, including land management and its impact on surface water quality.
