About me

In kindergarten, I was given the Science Award at Chee Dodge Elementary School in Ya'at'teeh, New Mexico (located on the Navajo Nation). My mother picked me up from my classroom. As soon as I saw my mom I asked her, "What is science?" We still laugh about my naivety. Later, my mother explained that in the Navajo language, scientist is "na'ałkałi" or someone who investigates.

Therefore, I am na'ałkałi.

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As a postdoc at the Salish Sea Research Center I am pursuing my interests in qPCR as a tool to quantify dinoflagellates and fish in surface ocean environments.

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As a biogeochemist, I have investigated the speciation and distribution of carbon, iron, and sulfur in minerals and particles collected from aqueous subsurface and near-surface systems.

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I previously served as the First Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. I used microscopy, spectroscopy, and electron microscopy techniques to describe the chemical and structural composition of elemental sulfur and organic compounds produced by microbe-mineral interactions in a subsurface system. 

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The research I did as a Ph.D. candidate involved characterization of metals and sulfur intimately associated with organic compounds in marine hydrothermal vents particles. By combining XANES data and a metagenomic dataset for sulfur-cycling genes, we were able to characterize both the solid-state sulfur chemistry and microbial activity at the Von Damm Hydrothermal System. 

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My Master’s project took me to the Tierra Amarilla anticline, near San Ysidro, New Mexico, a geologic feature in northern New Mexico that is a consequence of plate tectonic activity. The anticline feeds travertine mounds that are actively forming as groundwater “erupts” along fault systems that are acting as conduits. Based on 16S rRNA, we detected marine and freshwater FeOB (Crossey et al., 2016).

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