User Profile profile for andrew.vermilyea

I have a diverse academic background grounded in Chemistry. As an undergraduate at Hamilton College, I pursued a senior project on the anoxic, abiotic degradation of chlorinated solvents on the surface on biogenic magnetite minerals. This project along with some other summer research experiences motivated me to apply for graduate programs in EnvironmentalChemistry. In graduate school at the Colorado School of Mines, I continued to study contaminate degradation, but this work focused on sunlit surface waters where indirect photochemical degradation was our main mechanistic focus. These mechanisms include reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl radical, and sometimes iron (as with the photo Fenton Reaction). Additionally, I studied and quantified biological rates of ROS production in freshwater bodies and during cruises in the Gulf of Alaska and around Bermuda. These reactions are important because ROS influence the bioavailability of redox active metals, some of which are trace and limiting nutrients (such as iron in the Pacific Ocean).

My post doctorate work at the University of Alaska Southeast broadened my research interests to include much larger scale systems. Here I tried to understand how landscapes and the very small mechanistic processes I have studied in the past influence the total export of nutrients from watersheds to a very productive coastal ecosystem like the Gulf of Alaska. The major question of interest to me for the coastal AK ecosystem is...how will nutrient export from these glaciated watersheds and the productivity in coastal waters change as our climate continues to warm and the glaciers continue to melt?