What's New in the Fall 2006
A. Visitors to the Lab
We eagerly anticipate the arrival of Professor Tom Boutton in September, 2006 who will be spending his sabbatical with us. We will be working on a newly funded NSF grant on the impacts of ecosystem shifts to soil organic matter dynamics. We look forward to a productive fall. Additional visitors to the lab are listed on the "visitors" web page. Tom will be working on compound specific stable carbon isotope analysis of organic compounds extracted from soil fractions to help under stand biopolymer and molecular turnover in the woodland/grassland transition study.
Laura Wysocki , a PhD student with Tom Bianchi, spent June in our lab working on the compound specific stable carbon analysis of lignin monomers released from sediments surface cores from the Mississippi River Delta as well as POM isolated from the river. We would like to that the Purdue University College of Science and Dean Jeff Vitter who funded Laura's trip to Purdue this summer. Laura's thesis was severely disrupted by Hurricane Katrina and the CoS assistance allowed her to finally wrap up all of here analysis.
B. Group Members
Congratulations to Keith Crooker ! Keith successfully defended his MS thesis this July. Keith's thesis investigated the sources of plant carbon in soil and aquatic organic matter fractions mobilized by storm events in an agricultural watershed. Keith's project was conducted at Leary Weber Ditch, a small watershed west of Indianapolis IN , in collaboration with the USGS-Indianapolis. He utilized lignin and stable isotope techniques to track sources and processing of organic matter. Keith's work was funded by CASGMS (The Consortium for Agricultural Soil Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases). He has taken on a staff position in the biogeochemistry lab of Jennifer King, University of Minnesota : http://www.cbs.umn.edu/eeb/faculty/KingJennifer/
Roger Cohen has completed his first year in the lab. He has chosen to work on an NSF-funded project (T. Filley and T. Boutton PIs) relating how woody plant encroachment in a subtropical savannah in Texas impacts soil organic matter dynamics. He will be pursuing comparative 13C and 14C measurement and modeling of organic matter cycling. His approaches include molecular chemistry, soil physical fractionation, stable and radio isotope measurements of bulk and biomarkers (phospholipids and lignin). He begins his field work Fall at the Texas A&M La Copita research station. This past summer he spent time at Lawrence Livermore National Lab working with Chris Swanston on microscale techniques of 14C analysis. This fall he will be analyzing a variety of samples at PRIME Lab (http://www.physics.purdue.edu/primelab/index.html) and starting his respiration studies on soil fractions in Purdue's PSI facility ( http://www.purdue.edu/eas/psi/ ).
Katie Schreiner , is the newest addition to the lab. She comes to us from Purdue's own Chemistry dept. She will be working on the microbial decomposition of fullerenes (C60 and C70-nanocarbon). Her work is jointly funded by NSF and EPA ( http://www.ydae.purdue.edu/ANE/index.htm ). She will be using HPLC, stable isotopes, and other mass spectrometry techniques to determine how specific fungi decompose or chemically alter this carbon form to assess one aspect of the environmental fate of this manufacture material.
Susan Crow, recent PhD, Oregon State University started her position as Post Doctoral Researcher in April, 2006. She is working on a number of projects but initially she will spearhead investigations on a USDA project of microbial accessibility of dissolved organic matter fractions from local watersheds. Additionally, she, along with her undergraduate assistant Grace "Cat" Conyers is working on an NSF project investigating movement of litter into soil fractions using size and density fractionations of soils from our litter amendment plots with colleagues at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center . This project is funded by NSF. In this latter project she is relating microbial activity to litter and soils decay dynamics.
Dave Beilman, is a visiting scientist who recently received his PhD in Geography from UCLA and is now a Post Doctoral researcher there. He is at Purdue continuing his Arctic peat work doing physical separations and stable carbon isotope analysis on his samples. Additionally, he is also synthesizing 13C-TMAH in order to perform thermochemolysis on samples from his Arctic project.
Undergraduate Research:
Grace Conyers (Cat) and Seth King are helping in the lab by setting up density and size separations on soil fractions. Additionally, their work includes loss on ignition analysis of sediment core samples from Eagle Creek Reservoir near Indianapolis , IN.
C. Upcoming Special Edition of Soil Biology and Biochemistry
Tom Boutton ( Texas A&M ) and I are co-editing a special volume of the journal Soil Biology and Biochemistry to present the presentations at our 2004 AGU Biogeosciences session: Ecosystems in flux: Molecular and stable isotope assessments of soil organic matter storage and dynamics. A cover date of November 2006 is finalized.
D. New Instrumentation-Lab facilities
Please take a look at our page describing new instrumentation and our newly remodeled Purdue Stable Isotope Facility. The biggest changes are associated with the hiring of two new colleagues last year, Drs Gabe Bowen and Greg Michalski . They have purchased two new Finnigan Delta V IRMS systems to support their research programs. Look for great things to come out of this stable isotope geochemistry lab! These are exciting times at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences!
Additionally, Dr. Sergey Oleynik , has joined the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences as the first lab Manager of PSI. Sergey comes to us from a recent position at the University of Illinois , Chicago .
