I work with silicifying organisms, particularly polycystine radiolarians. I am very interested in the interplay between silicifying organisms (diatoms, radiolarians, and sponges, primarily) and ocean silica concentrations. My PhD research, supervised by Pincelli Hull (Yale), used diagenetic modeling with compiled IODP/ODP/DSDP data to examine the effect of changing sedimentation rate and temperature on deep sea silica preservation. I also looked at radiolarian assemblages and size across the PETM, and compared radiolarian test wall thickness in the Paleozoic and Cenozoic. During a one-year post-doc with Lidya Tarhan I worked on using coretop radiolarian d30Si to constrain the radiolarian Si isotope fractionation factor, and also looked at the geochemical effects of 'piperock' bioturbation in Cambrian sediments.

At Bristol, as part of the PETRARCH project (PI: Michael Henehan), I am working on developing d11B in radiolarians as a paleo-pH proxy, which has the potential to greatly expand our record of past atmospheric CO2 levels. As part of this, I spent 3 months in Autumn 2023 growing polycystine radiolarians at different pH settings at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche in southern France. There are limited studies of polycystines in lab settings, so in addition to potential insight from their geochemistry, this field work provides many opportunities to learn about their physiology and behaviour.