Overview
My research as an undergraduate concentrated on the potassium isotopic composition of meteorites including ordinary chondrites, carbonaceous chondrites, and Martian meteorites. I sought to determine the potassium isotopic composition as it's moderately volatile characteristics reveal clues in to the Early Solar System's history specifically by implicating depletion trends which correspond to various solar nebula and parent body processes. While the bulk of my research has been with meteorite samples as insights into the origin and history of our Solar System particularly the Earth and Mars, I hope to broaden my studies by utilizing other isotopes as tracers for planetary formation in other planetary materials and bodies in our Solar System.
An Antarctic meteorite prior to dissolution (Left). Drying down samples after undergoing the first run of column chromatography to elute pure potassium for MC-ICP-MS measurements (Right).