As a terrestrial biogeochemist and global change ecologist, my research is focused on understanding how plants and soils regulate the movement of carbon, nutrients, and water in terrestrial ecosystems. I am particularly interested in understanding how human activities, such as urbanization, deforestation, forest fragmentation, and climate change, alter biogeochemical cycles. My research agenda is motivated by the need for actionable ecological data and theory to inform sustainable environmental policies and evaluate their efficacy, especially in the context of global climate change. To address these research aims I have conducted studies in remote tropical forests to the densely populated cities of northeastern United States. I integrate field studies, molecular analyses, stable isotopes, remote sensing, meta-analyses, and modeling approaches to scale ecosystem processes at the individual soil core or tree to landscape scales.