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Research Interests
Most broadly, my work has always been guided by a desire to understand the mechanisms behind the persistent habitability that has characterized Earth’s climate for approximately 4 billion years. While it is known that silicate weathering plays an important role in Earth’s long-term climate regulation, some aspects of this feedback are still unclear. For example, to what extent has the alteration of oceanic crust contributed to global silicate weathering rates through time? What is the role of secondary silicate minerals (a product of silicate weathering) in the global carbon cycle? And how have these processes contributed to the observed changes in ocean chemistry over the last ~ 60 million years? To address these and other related questions, I investigate fluid, sediment, and rock archives through a combination of mineralogical data, numerical models, and measurements of stable and radiogenic isotopes. In addition to my core research on the links between global carbon cycle, climate, and ocean chemistry, I am also interested in the application of geochemical tools to environmental science (e.g., the influence of human activities on river chemistry), environmental justice (e.g., fingerprinting sources of contaminants to drinking water), and biology (e.g., osmotic regulation in plant and animal cells).
Short History
I am originally from Recife, a coastal city in the northeast of Brazil with a rich and vibrant culture. Following a short stint as a History major at home, I left Brazil in 2009 to pursue a college degree in Amherst College, MA, where I was exposed to and fell in love with the Earth Sciences. After graduating with a B.A. in Geology in 2013, I joined the Geosciences Ph.D. program at Princeton University under the mentorship of Dr. John Higgins. In 2019, I moved back to MA as a postdoctoral scholar to work with Dr. Sune Nielsen in WHOI’s Geology & Geophysics Department. Before joining the faculty at Rutgers in early 2022, I worked as a Lecturer in the Princeton Geosciences Department in Fall 2021.