The University of British Columbia

My work at UBC revolves around the use of lead (Pb) as a tracer of anthropogenic pollution in marine environments. Since an M.Sc. thesis can't possibly make meaningful measurements around the globe, my work focuses on the southern Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean and a section of the northeast Pacific known as Line P. Human-linked emissions of Pb topped out in the 1970's before it was banned from gasoline before slowly declining over the intervening years. As far as we know there are no measurements in the western Arctic for Pb, and the last time this element has been measured on Line P was prior to 1986. Therefore my work will update this data, and provide a "baseline" for Pb in the Arctic. I use quotations because conditions in the Canada Basin are changing rapidly in response to climate change and any measurements made at present are likely a far cry from pre-anthropogenic levels. Regardless, it is of interest to gether this data before conditions are altered further.

Along with simply knowing the concentrations of Pb in the environment (which is ubiquitous), we can also measure the abundances of various isotopes of Pb. This allows us to determine from where the pollution has travelled. Since the arctic biome is relatively pristine in the sense that it has very few major sources of Pb, it is of interest to determine where any potentially polluting Pb would be released.

Oceanographic Cruise Experience

Canada Basin, Arctic Ocean from September 15 - October 15, 2010 aboard CCGS Louis S St Laurent.

Canada Basin, Arctic Ocean from September 15 - October 15, 2009 aboard CCGS Louis S St Laurent.

Awards

NSERC Post-graduate scholarship - 2 year (2008).

Howard Darling Award (2006, 2007).