My group

Shikma Zaarur is a PhD student. Shikma is interested in paleoclimate on land; in particulare reconstruction of paleotemperatures and paleo-hydrology during the Quaternary. Her research includes laboratory experiments of calcite precipitation to understand equilibrium and kinetic isotope effects in clumped isotopes; understanding clumped isotopes in terrestrial biogenic aragonite such as land snail and fresh water mollusks; using lake sediments and river mollusks to reconstruct paleoclimate in the Eastern Mediterranean and East Africa .

Peter Douglas is a PhD student. Peter studies paleotemperatures during the Eocene epoch. He uses clumped isotopes in bivalve shells to examine latitudinal distribution of sea surface temperature during a time period that is characterized by high atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and serves as a potential analog for a future Greenhouse climate. Peter is working also with Mark Pagani, studying climatic conditions associated with the collapse of the Maya culture, using leaf waxes in lake sediments. 

Yige  Zhang is a PhD student who is working on a minor discourse in my laboratory. He is interested in paleoclimate reconstruction during the Neogene. In particular, his research uses a variety of proxies to study Miocene climate. As part of it he examines temperature variability in Kamchatka, using clumped isotopes in bivalve shells .

Tobias Kluge is a postdoctoral fellow. He is interested in the physical and chemical processes that affect the formation of speleothems (cave deposits) and their geochemistry. He is further interested in the use of speleothems for paleoclimate reconstruction on land. Tobias uses speleothems for Bunker cave in Germany to examine kinetic isotope effects and their effect on clumped isotopes and oxygen isotopes in speleothems.

Casey Saenger is a postdoctoral fellow. He is interested in vital effects in corals, namely how does the biology of the coral, such as calcification processes and growth, rates affect the isotopic and trace elements distributions in coral aragonite skeleton. He examines clumped isotopes in a variety of tropical corals. Casey works also with Zhengrong Wang to examine trace elements and magnesium isotopes in tropical corals.

Alessandro Zanazzi is an alumni postdoc. He is interested in isotopes in bioapatite, and the use of fossil teeth and bones for paleoclimate reconstruction in particular at the Eocene-Oligocene transition. While at Yale he worked on clumped isotopes in the carbonate moiety in bioapatite. He is now an assistant professor at Utah Valley University