PhD Candidate
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

tganey@ucsc.edu

Research interests: paleoceanography, environmental geochemistry, carbon cycle

Biography
I grew up in Portland, OR and completed my undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. With a double major in Earth science and astronomy, I worked on a variety of projects studying exoplanet atmospheres, sedimentary features on Venus, and carbon sequestration in Northern Hardwood forests. Through my coursework, I discovered an enthusiasm for Earth history and the feedbacks between global biogeochemical cycles and the climate system. My undergraduate research also helped me develop programming skills that have motivated my interest in numerical modeling and computational analysis, and I plan to use both models and laboratory methods as part of my graduate work. I joined the Paytan lab and the Hain Biogeochemistry group as a PhD student in the fall of 2021. I am principally advised by Dr. Mathis Hain and co-advised by Dr. Adina Paytan.

Research
My research is motivated by a general interest in the response of marine biogeochemical cycles to perturbations in the geologic carbon cycle and changes in bulk ocean chemistry. My current projects focus on (1) characterizing environmental geochemistry/carbonate chemistry in isolated calcification environments, with an emphasis on modern dolomite formation and (2) modeling the evolution of seawater chemistry through time. I use a variety of laboratory and computational tools in my work and value the perspective that both models and direct observations provide. The core goals of my graduate research are to generate improved methods for simulating the chemistry of seawater and seawater-like brines (both past and present), and to use these new models to better understand the marine carbon cycle, carbonate mineral formation, climate feedbacks, and major ion cycling in the oceans.