I am a Professor of Geobiology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech, and am affiliated with the geobiology and geochemistry academic options. I serve as the option representative for geobiology. I currently teach three courses: Organic Geochemistry (Ge 143), Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (Ge 145), and Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry (Ge 140c). Ge-145 is taught in the fall, Ge-140c and 143 are in the spring in alternate years (Ge140c in spring 2020). I also serve as co-director of the International Geobiology Course, a summer graduate training course hosted at Caltech and the Wrigley Marine Institute.
My research group uses the structure, abundance, and stable isotope composition of organic molecules to solve a range of problems in Earth and Environmental Sciences. We work on everything from modern oceans, soils, plants and bacteria, to 3 billion year-old rocks. Our special expertise lies in finding new ways to measure the abundance of stable isotopes in these organic molecules, and applying those new measurement techniques to study a variety of scientific questions. This field of science is variously described as organic geochemistry, geobiology, or biogeochemistry.
My research group currently consists of a lab manager, 4 postdocs, and 5 PhD students. You can see their smiling faces here. I am not currently accepting any new students.
John Eiler and I started a company called Isotomics to commercialize the application of clumped-isotope measurements in organic molecules.