Opportunities for graduate study in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at Johns Hopkins for students interested in using stable isotopes in ecological, climatic and/or sedimentologic research:

I am involved in ongoing projects in Kenya,Ethiopia, Mexico and South Africa, with opportunities for student fieldwork in all of these places.  I am just joining the Oaxaca Holocene paleoenvironment project and I would like to involve students who are interested in soils and geomorphology.  Other new projects include work on middle Pleistocene deposits on the western coast of South Africa, near Langebaan, where there are opportunities for stratigraphic and isotopic research.

In collaboration with Dr. Benjamin Passey, I am setting up a stable isotope facility at JHU that is currently centered around a Thermo MAT 253 mass spectrometer equipped with eight Faraday channels for measurement of singly- and multiply-substituted gas isotopologues. Peripheral equipment includes offline vacuum extraction lines, a Thermo TraceUltra gas chromatograph with FID and TCD detectors, and an custom-built common acid bath device for analysis of carbon, oxygen, and 'clumped' isotopes in carbonates and bioapatites.

Please contact me if you are interested in the graduate program at Johns Hopkins, with a desire to work on any of the ongoing projects or to pursue ideas of your own.  Information about the graduate program can be found by clicking here.  Applications are due January 15 to be considered for admission starting in Fall semester of the same year.