LEO Research Staff

Clement Lopez

jadamsb2 — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 13:46:32 +0000

Clement Lopez jadamsb2 Thu, 07/11/2024 - 06:46

Mineral carbonation is based on the reaction of CO2 with metal oxide-bearing materials to precipitate insoluble carbonates, with calcium being one of the most attractive metals. While the development of industrial carbonation processes has been recommended to mitigate climate change, its natural occurrence in soils and its potential enhancement through management practices has received little attention so far. Since natural carbonation is commonly considered to be a slow process, spreading powder of non-carbonated, calcium-bearing minerals over soils, a strategy known as enhanced rock weathering (ERW), is a promising way to accelerate it. While humid tropical areas are generally regarded as having the greatest potential for ERW, recent evidence suggests that carbonation may also be significant in drylands, driven by water vapour adsorption (WVA) by soil at night, potentially representing an overlooked long-term carbon sink. The OASIS project's general objective is to assess ERW's potential in dryland soils. Its main underlying assumption is that optimizing WVA with the amendment of highly adsorbent ground rock will maximize the carbonation process while reducing the dependence of phototrophic organisms on rainfall or irrigation. To tackle this objective, OASIS will implement field and mesocosm manipulative experiments using cutting-edge infrastructure to control environmental conditions and simulate climate change. These will be coupled to state-of-the-art measurements and isotopic tracing of soil-atmosphere water vapor and CO2 fluxes. This research will fill several gaps in our understanding of natural carbonation and its interactions with WVA, organisms, and climate change. It is also expected to provide solid arguments for implementing conservation measures and sustainable agricultural practices in drylands or seasonally dry lands to protect and increase water and carbon resources, which is in line with several European and global guidelines.

Clement Lopez

Postdoctoral Resercher

lopezcle@arizona.edu

Blake Steiner M.S.

jadamsb2 — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 14:57:38 +0000

Blake Steiner M.S. jadamsb2 Tue, 03/01/2022 - 07:57

Blake’s work focuses on utilizing remote sensing, geoinformatics, and modeling to answer ecohydrological, phenological, and biogeochemical questions in addition to project management at the Landscape Evolution Observatory in Biosphere 2. Blake has a passion for service and strives to share knowledge and opportunities to students and colleagues alike, in addition to volunteering. He is also interested in enhancing scientific communication and accessibility for the public.

Degrees

B.S. in Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University, 2017 M.S. in Natural Resources, University of Arizona, 2022

Blake Steiner M.S.

Researcher/Scientist III

blakesteiner@arizona.edu

Dr. Bill Riley

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:34:53 +0000

Dr. Bill Riley katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:34

Bill focuses on modeling terrestrial ecosystems and their interactions with climate and climate change. He has a varied educational background, including degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering, physics, and civil and environmental engineering. His published work includes development, testing, and application of numerical models that represent soil microbial dynamics, effects of abiotic processes such as mineral surface interactions, nutrient competition between microbes and plants, watershed-scale hydrological and biogeochemical processes, and climate-scale carbon and nutrient cycle processes.

Dr. Bill Riley

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

wjriley@lbl.gov

Dr. Aditi Sengupta

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:32:29 +0000

Dr. Aditi Sengupta katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:32

Dr. Sengupta is a soil microbial ecologist with research interests in understanding how microorganisms are impacted by their environment and in turn influence local-to-global environments. Originally from India, Dr. Sengupta came to the United States in 2010 for her PhD. She has expertise working with agricultural, incipient, and coastal soils. Her professional preparation includes a PhD from The Ohio State University, followed by postdoctoral research at University of Arizona (Tucson, Arizona) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, Washington).

Dr. Sengupta's teaching interests align with her research goals and she is currently teaching Microbiology and Molecular Biology. She values the power of mentorship and continues to actively form mentor-mentee relationships. She has many mentors to thank who continue to inspire her and guide her in her professional and personal life. Dr. Sengupta is interested in involving students outside her classroom in research projects which include opportunities in bioinformatics and microbial sequence data analysis.

A microbe enthusiast, Dr. Sengupta integrates field and lab experiments to derive omics-related understanding of soil-microbe interactions. Dr. Sengupta is a proponent of open-science, inclusive excellence, science communication, and STEM outreach. In her non-work hours, Dr. Sengupta enjoys hiking, cooking, painting-by-numbers, traveling, and watching Indian movies and TV shows when she is homesick.

Dr. Aditi Sengupta

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

asengupta@callutheran.edu

Dr. Bo Guo

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:29:25 +0000

Dr. Bo Guo katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:29

I am an Assistant Professor in Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences and an Affiliated Faculty Member of the Program in Applied Math. Before I joined the U of A, I was a postdoc in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University working with Prof. Hamdi Tchelepi. I received my PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University in 2016 working with Prof. Michael Celia in the Subsurface Hydrology Research Group, and my B.S. (with highest honor) in Hydraulic Engineering from Tsinghua University in China in 2011

Dr. Bo Guo

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

boguo@email.arizona.edu

Dr. Guo's Website

Dr. Betsy Arnold

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:25:47 +0000

Dr. Betsy Arnold katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:25

Research Interests include: Fungal ecology, evolution, and systematics; the evolution of symbioses; plant microbiomes

Dr. Betsy Arnold

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

arnold@ag.arizona.edu

Dr. Arnold's website

Dr. Jennifer Croissant

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:19:42 +0000

Dr. Jennifer Croissant katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:19

Jen Croissant (PhD Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Science & Technology Studies, 1994) is interested in the sociology of science and technology, particularly feminist science studies. Graduate Teaching includes ‘Science & Social Theory,’ ‘Technology & Social Theory,’ and the core GWS Seminar ‘Feminist Knowledge Production,’ while undergraduate teaching includes GWS160C (TRAD 103): Technology & Society, and GWS 317: Science Fiction Studies.

Current research is focussed on studies of/participation in interdisciplinarity, with the "Life On LEO" project at Biosphere2 and the Bridges NRT https://bridges.arizona.edu/ in the life sciences.

Dr. Jennifer Croissant

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

jlc@email.arizona.edu

Dr. Peter Troch

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:13:59 +0000

Dr. Peter Troch katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:13

Troch’s research focuses on catchment hydrology, including in-situ data collection, field and laboratory experimentation, remote sensing, physically-based modeling and data assimilation. His research aims to address the following questions: i) what controls hydrological partitioning across scales, ii) what defines hydrological similarity across catchments; iii) how have catchments evolved in relation to climate and geology, and how will hydrologic response change in a changing environment. Applications of his research include improving mountain block recharge estimates in semi-arid environments, the role of ecosystems in catchment water balance, catchment classification in ungauged basins, predicting water availability at seasonal, annual and decadal time scales, and improving the physical basis of operational flash flood forecasting models.

Dr. Peter Troch

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

patroch@hwr.arizona.edu

Dr. Jon Chorover

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:10:32 +0000

Dr. Jon Chorover katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:10

Jon Chorover is Professor and Head, Department of Environmental Science at the University of Arizona (UA). His research group explores the biogeochemistry of soil, sediment and water through laboratory and field-based experiments probed with advanced analytical chemistry techniques. Of particular interest is resolving how mineral-organic-microbe interactions influence nutrient availability to plants, the weathering of soils, the stabilization of organic carbon, and the speciation, mobility and bioaccessibility of pollutants. He has authored over 220 journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Chorover is a Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, editor for the journals Environmental Chemistry and Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. He directs a core analytical chemistry facility at UA, the Arizona Laboratory for Emerging Contaminants (www.alec.arizona.edu) and serves as PI of the UA-led, NSF-funded Santa Catalina Mountains – Jemez River Basin Critical Zone Observatory (http://criticalzone.org/catalina-jemez/). He received his B.S. (Environmental Science) from University of Michigan, and M.S. (Forest Science) and Ph.D. (Soil and Water Chemistry) from UC Berkeley, worked as an NSF postdoctoral fellow in Analytical Chemistry at University of Geneva, and was on the faculty of Penn State University before joining the faculty of University of Arizona.

Dr. Jon Chorover

520-626-5635

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

chorover@arizona.edu

Dr. Chorover's Website

Dr. Malak Tfaily

katherinemorgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:06:37 +0000

Dr. Malak Tfaily katherinemorgan Mon, 11/01/2021 - 06:06

Malak is an ecosystem scientist with a PhD degree in Analytical chemistry from Florida State University. Her research aims to improve the understanding of carbon cycling in terrestrial and aquatic systems, the microbial-organic matter interactions that underlie it, and the controls upon it in dynamically changing systems. She uses a combination of modern and unique analytical molecular, geochemical and isotopic techniques to answer how, where and when organic matter formation and degradation takes place in different ecosystems. Malak’s research training focused on dissolved organic matter characterization during her PhD, soil organic matter characterization during her postdoctoral research, and recently has advanced to the systems-level integration of detailed organic matter characterization with insights from molecular microbial ecology and plant biology, with the direct goal of distilling the findings of these syntheses for improved predictive modeling of ecosystem and global change.

Dr. Malak Tfaily

520-626-3650

LEO Research Collaborator- GCR Grant

tfaily@email.arizona.edu

Dr. Tfaily's Website