I received a Bachelor of Science in Earth Systems Science at the University of California in Merced in 2015. Throughout my undergraduate program I worked with Dr. Asmeret Berhe, studying soil biogeochemistry. We sought to analyze the concentrations and transport of iron and aluminum nanoparticles, and associated carbon, across an eroding hillslope.
In the fall of 2015 I came to Newfoundland to work with Sue first as a research assistant and will continue my research as an MSc student in the Earth Science department in January 2016. In my research I will employ carbon and proton-nuclear magnetic resonance to characterize dissolved organic matter (DOM). Specifically I will examine DOM composition in both terrestrial and aquatic pools and across seasonal and hydrological variations in boreal forest watershed ecosystems. By doing so I will gather information on major sources of DOM, and what chemical, or biological, transformations occur in each pool and along the terrestrial-to-aquatic interface. I will analyze these relationships in the Pynn’s Brook catchment, in the Humber River Region of the NL-BELT climate transect, by utilizing an intensive sampling and monitoring structure that involves replication across different spatial positions and frequent sampling over an annual cycle to include the snow pack and snow melt periods. I also plan to apply these chemical approaches to a large sample set available from past studies along the NL-BELT headwater stream catchments in order to explore the influence of climate change to relationship to seasonal and hydrological variation. This transect gives an excellent opportunity to study climate change across one of the the earth’s most climate sensitive zone, and will allow me to investigate whether these relationships are present across a series of different ecosystems.
You can reach me via email at: anewman@mun.ca