My research currently explores the physically-based processes that modify the production of mineral aerosols from arid environments. The research areas that interest me include: climate change, human-environmental issues, soil genesis, salt chemistry, and vegetation dynamics.

Attending to kit on Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana.Photo credit: F. Eckardt

Research Background:

My research combines empirical and theoretical approaches to studying the interactions between erodible surfaces and vegetation investigating nutrient pathways in semi-arid ecosystems, sediment transport dynamics, and landscape development. Utilizing a large variety of instrumentation to record and observe sediment transport dynamics, nutrient cycling, and climatological processes, in addition to designing specific instrumentation for research applications provides new insights into complex processes. Specific interests include modeling sediment transport and dust emissions in a variety of environments producing regional-scale and local-scale climate prediction, utilization of sediment transport dynamics to model sparsely vegetated ecosystems, and instrument development for improving measurements of sediment transport dynamics. Research projects sites have included southern Africa, Mongolia, Canada, and United States.

Earned BSc and PhD degrees at University of Guelph, Canada, and previously held a research position at Desert Research Institute, USA and a teaching position at York University, Canada. Most recently held a post-doctoral research associate position at the Oxford University Center for the Environment and a Senior Lecturer at Keble College. After a brief position at Indiana University – Bloomington in the Department of Geography as a Visiting Assistant Professor (Faculty Page), I am now an Assistant Professor of Geomorphology at Université de Montréal in the Département de Géographie .

This site will update mainly job opportunities for graduate students, post-docs, and faculty that arise in climatology, physical geography, meteorology, and ecology and are posted as links to my twitter account (@DrAeolus). This is in addition to trying to update with some more personal entries reflecting on field work, department life, and conferences (that is when I am not in the middle of a desert with no connectivity).