I am a climate and biogeochemical modeler who studies terrestrial ecosystems. I received my B.A. in physics and astronomy from Swarthmore College in 1987, my M.S. in geology from the University of Colorado – Boulder in 1991, my Ph.D. in geology from Brown University in 1995, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder.  Following my postdoctoral research, I worked as a Project Scientist for the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, spent the next year as an assistant project manager for the hydrological component of NOAA’s Office of Global Programs (OGP), and in 2001 became a research associate at the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.  I spent the spring of 2008 as a Visiting Professor of Geology at Oberlin College, and started my current position as an Assistant Professor in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lehigh in August, 2008, becoming an Associate Professor in 2015.  My recent work involves modeling the carbon and ecosystem effects of human and natural disturbances, such as land use and land cover change, in the context of climate warming, rising CO₂ levels, and air pollution.  I have also looked at how climate extremes affect ecosystem function and human societies.