Earth’s oceans have seen major biological evolution over life’s ~4 billion year history, and are the largest habitable environment on the planet. This is because our present-day oceans are rich in oxygen, allowing various life forms to thrive. However, such conditions were once rare in Earth's past.

My research contributes to understanding what allowed the atmosphere and oceans to become—and stay—oxygenated, which lets us:

(1) untangle the history of life on our planet, from early microbes to the first fish
(2) make better guesses about what will happen when the ocean loses oxygen due to climate change
(3) search for planets outside our solar system that could have life.

Currently, I use 3D models to simulate ocean circulation and biological processes. I study how oxygen evolves in scenarios that made the ocean very different than the present-day:

(1) did the slowing of Earth's spin change ocean circulation?
(2) what makes plate tectonics impact ocean oxygen levels?
(3) could microbes competing for food have oxygenated the Earth?

In addition to these main themes, I've contributed to other projects exploring:

(1) how seasonality impacts records of past hydroclimate in ancient tropical soils
(2) whether the ocean's mixing timescale and its influence on geochemical proxies changed over time
(3) the potential for terrestrial exoplanets to host surface water oceans