Thank you for visiting my website. I am Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. I first attended the University of New Orleans where I earned by Bachelors of Science degree in Geology in 1999. While at UNO I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Kraig Derstler and participated in dinosaur excavations in Wyoming. I completed my graduate work, both Master’s and Ph.D., in 2005 in the Department of Geology at the University of Kansas with Dr. Larry Martin and Dr. Stephen Hasiotis, respectively. While at KU I had the opportunity to work with an excellent group of graduate students with similar research interests.
My research program involves the interaction of sedimentological and biological processes within the fields of paleopedology and ichnology. I combine these disciplines to study the evolution of modern and ancient soils, soil ecosystems, and landscapes as well as to demonstrate the broad environmental, climatic, and ecological applications of paleosols and ichnofossils, especially in evaluating the effect of long-term climate change on terrestrial ecosystems through Earth history. This involves not only the study of paleosols and continental trace fossils throughout geologic time, but also the experimental study of modern soils and the burrowing activities of extant terrestrial annelids, arthropods, amphibians, and reptiles. My recent research projects have involved the study of the influence of climate change on ancient soils and soil ecosystems including those of the Pennsylvanian-Permian of southeast Ohio and West Virginia, as well as the Eocene to Pliocene of Colorado, Wyoming, southern Bolivia, and Ethiopia.
To learn more about my research, please see my Research and Ichnology Laboratory pages. If you have any questions concerning my research, would like PDFs of my recent papers, or are a student looking for a graduate school please send me an email at [email protected].