I graduated from University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences with a B.S. degree in December 1984.  I worked as a forecast/broadcast meteorologist for seven years following graduation, during which time I earned the American Meteorological Society's Television Broadcast Seal of Approval.  With a desire to learn more about forecasting techniques related to short-term climate variations (i.e., El Nino/La Nina), I returned to graduate school at the University of Michigan.  During my graduate education, I came to appreciate that weather as we know it owes its existence to the unequal heating of the Earth's surface and the atmospheric and oceanic processes which seek to smooth out these inequalities.  As a result, I became interested in the study of the air-surface exchange of both energy and trace gases at the Earth's surface. I obtained my PhD from the University of Michigan in 1995, with my research focused on such exchanges in an urban forest ecosystem.

Currently, my research is focused on the study of the lower atmosphere and its impact on the transport, dispersion and deposition of trace gases and particulate matter.  I am particularly interested in the study of the interaction between meteorological parameters (e.g., solar radiation, temperature and wind) and plant physiological processes, and the resulting impact of these interactions on the air-surface exchange of trace gases associated with plants.  To date, I have performed a number of field investigations related to the air-surface exchange of mercury and other trace gases over a northern hardwood forest, a northern wetland ecosystem, agricultural crops and soils and within the Florida Everglades.