Morton K. Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellow

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD

Education and Academic Positions

  • Ph.D. in Geobiology — Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2020)

  • B.A. in Geosciences — Smith College (2015)

  • Morton K. Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellow — Johns Hopkins University (2025 — present)

  • NSF Postdoctoral Fellow — Johns Hopkins University (2023 — 2025)

  • Postdoctoral Fellow — California Institute of Technology (2021 — 2023)

  • Postdoctoral Fellow — NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) (2020 — 2021)

About Me

I am fascinated by the intricate connections between microbial life and the environment and how life and the planet have evolved together over billions of years of Earth history. As an interdisciplinary geobiologist and geochemist, I tap into modern and ancient records of this coevolution to ask fundamental questions about early life, surface processes, ancient environments, and the mechanisms by which microbes and biological and chemical processes have shaped the evolution of our planet.

I was first introduced to the mysteries of the Proterozoic biosphere as an undergraduate at Smith College. I used the microfossil record to investigate the Neoproterozoic biosphere and the response of the biosphere to the Snowball Earth Event.

As a graduate student, I learned to tap into another archive of the evolution of life and surface environments: the modern microbial biosphere. I was curious about the Proterozoic microfossil record, the evolution of life during this Eon, and how microbes contributed to silica precipitation and the silica cycle. I was particularly cyanobacteria – the microbes responsible for oxygenic photosynthesis and one of the major primary producers on our modern and ancient planet. I was curious about their potential role in silica precipitation in Proterozoic environments and investigated this topic using an experimental approach with modern cyanobacteria analogous to Proterozoic fossils. This study showed me how much we can learn from modern organisms about how microbes in the past may have interacted with, responded to, and shaped their environments in the past and highlighted the potential microbial contributions to past surface processes.

These two archives of the history of life and the environment (the sedimentary and biosignature records and modern microbial ecosystems) are the cornerstones of my research. Since completing my Ph.D., I have continued to integrate both experimental biogeochemistry and the sedimentary and biosignature records in an attempt to better understand early ecosystems, past environments, and the coevolution of life and surface environments. I have studied microbial stress responses, microbially mediated geochemical cycles and mineral forming mechanisms, and biosignatures that preserve a record of ecosystems and surface processes across marine and terrestrial environments from the Proterozoic to the Cretaceous.

By tapping into these modern and ancient archives and through this interdisciplinary research, I aim to better reconstruct ancient ecosystems, past environments, and how microbes influence and are influenced by surface processes through time. Through this work, I hope to better understand the past and future evolution of the environment and the biosphere on Earth and extend this research to astrobiology and the search for life outside of our planet.

Past and Current Lab Group Affiliations: