I'm interested in how humans impact the natural environment, biodiversity and ecosystem function. My research focuses on how past, present and future environmental disturbances (natural and anthropogenic) influence ecological resilience and ecosystem development (e.g. biodiversity, coral recruitment, marine calcification and erosion), and also how such disturbances impact resource management.

Current multidisciplinary projects:

1. Agricultural runoff (e.g. sediments and nutrients) and their impacts on coral reefs
2. How mining activities in the nearshore zone influence coral reef development
3. Coral bleaching (temperature stress) and reef development
4. Changing catchment use and river runoff on coral reefs
5. Plastic pollution on coral reefs
6. Coral reef carbonate budgets and responses to environmental stress

I have an interdisciplinary background in the bio-geo sciences and broad research interests which include: catchment to reef interactions, reef health, calcification, carbonate budgets, reef monitoring, geochemical proxies, coral sclerochronology (growth rings), hurricanes, bleaching, coral recruitment, land-based stressors, climate change and marine resource management.

For my PhD research I developed a coral reef carbonate budget model to assess how river runoff influenced rates and styles of reef development and carbonate accretion in Jamaica. As a Research Fellow at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad, I expanded on this research to incorporate climate change variables into my carbonate budget approach. We designed and implemented a long-term reef monitoring program, assessed the effects of hurricanes and bleaching on coral recruitment and coral disease. We then took cores from coral colonies in order to build proxy records of climate change and terrestrial runoff, used stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) to assess sources of energy and pollution on the reef, and used in-situ experiments to assess reefal calcification in relation to global (e.g. climate change), regional (e.g. Orinoco River runoff) and local (e.g. sewage) disturbances. Currently I am an ARC-DECRA fellow. I am focusing on the effects of land-based runoff on the development of the Great Barrier Reef: past, present and future. Please contact me if you are interested in any of this work.