I study the effects of land use change and agricultural intensification in Central and South America on the function of ecosystems and the control of atmospheric chemistry and composition. My research ranges from the biological controls of trace gas emissions at the organismal level to the estimation and modeling of regional and global trace gas and carbon budgets.

Over the past two decades, I have lived and worked in Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico as well as in the United States. I currently serve as lead scientist for the NASA sponsored LBA-ECO component of the Brazilian led Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere in Amazonia (LBA) and the Co-Chair of the LBA International Science Steering Committee. LBA-ECO is designed around the question: How do tropical forest conversion, regrowth, and selective logging influence carbon storage, nutrient dynamics, trace gas fluxes and the prospect for sustainable land use in the Amazon region? In order to answer this question together with my colleagues in LBA-ECO, I combine in situ measurements with regional models and remotely sensed observations of biological and social systems in the Amazonian environment.