Phosphorus Cycling & Phytoremediation

My PhD research centered on mitigating nutrient pollution from historically fertilized ranchlands through 'vegetation harvest strips' — a phytoremediation biotechnology designed to capture and remove legacy phosphorus from soils before it reaches downstream waterways like the Everglades.

This work was conducted primarily at Archbold Biological Station in Venus, Florida, in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Boughton and supported by the ForEverglades Research Enhancement Fellowship and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. I used mesocosm experiments, soil chemistry, ground-penetrating radar, and mycorrhizal analyses to understand how planted species mediate P losses and how subsurface architecture shapes nutrient fate.

Ongoing extensions include using GPR to uncover buried 'islands of fertility' and developing global-scale predictions of phosphorus distribution and vulnerability to loss.