Our research is broad and interdisciplinary. A Venn diagram might include four circles labelled paleoclimate reconstructions, isotopes and proxy development, data synthesis, and biomineralization. A good bit of fun, challenge, and script error messages would be peppered across all of them. While it’s never too late to get excited about a new research idea, these major themes are summarized below.

Paleoclimate Reconstructions
To reconstruct past climates, we use the trace metals, isotopic composition and growth bands of biogenic carbonates such as corals, foraminifera and bivalves to estimate important variables such as ocean temperature, salinity and circulation. By measuring the geochemical variability in long-lived specimens or fossils preserved in the geologic record, it is then possible to estimate past changes at timescales of months to millennia.

Isotope and Proxy Development
Before any paleoclimate tool is ready to be applied in the unknown past, it needs be understood during the instrumental era when we actually know the climate. We put proxies “through the ringer” to see how well they work in different settings with different organisms and the degree to which confounding factors will get in the way of reconstructing climate. We’re also interested in developing new paleoclimate techniques that increase the accuracy and precision of reconstructions or allow new variables to be estimated.

Data synthesis
Watching Netflix on a screen with only a couple pixels isn’t that enjoyable. In a similar way, our understanding of past climate from just a couple reconstructions isn’t very complete. Aggregating and synthesizing existing records allows for a more complete picture of how climate has varied, and therefore facilitates a more complete understanding of the climate system across spatiotemporal scales. Combining these synthesis efforts with global climate models using data assimilation is a particularly powerful approach.

Biomineralization
The shells and skeletons we use to reconstruct past climates rely on biological processes to precipitate carbonate minerals. The down side of these processes is that they can make it difficult to interpret proxies in terms of the climate variables we’re interested in. But the silver lining is that unexpected proxy signals can tell us something about how organisms make their carbonate structures. Such information is valuable for correctly interpreting paleoclimate reconstructions and for understanding how organisms will respond to anthropogenic ocean acidification.