When
Monday, April 13, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.
Laura Meredith
Associate Professor
Ecosystem Genomics
University of Arizona
"The Breathing Biosphere-Microbial and Ecosystem VOCs and Trace Gases in a Changing Atmosphere"
Harshbarger 118A-A1
ABSTRACT: In this talk, I give an overview of our research on the biosphere-atmosphere exchange of gases with large and uncertain roles. Our work falls under the following three themes: (1) biosphere-atmosphere exchange of trace gases; (2) sensitivity to global change & climate solutions; and (3) biological and ecological drivers of microbial, soil and plant gas cycling. Specific projects include resolving the significant influence of soil microorganisms on atmospheric hydrogen (H2) abundance and variability and the secret biological cycling and chemical degradation of volatile organic compounds (VOC) beneath our feet. Together these projects aim to increase process-based understanding of biosphere-atmosphere exchange and improve projections of global-change feedbacks.
BIOSKETCH: Laura Meredith is an associate professor at the University of Arizona where she leads a research team focused on microbial trace gas metabolism, methods for sensing trace gases in soil and scaling microbial processes driving biosphere-atmosphere exchange. Meredith received her PhD in 2013 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where her dissertation centered on the soil sink for atmospheric H2. As an NSF postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University, she investigated the genomic underpinnings of microbial uptake of atmospheric carbonyl sulfide (OCS)—a promising carbon cycle tracer. Meredith joined the faculty of the University of Arizona in 2017 and has since built a research program supported by grants from NSF (including the NSF CAREER award), DOE and industry partners. As the Tropical Rainforest Science Director at Biosphere 2, she co-led the Water, Atmosphere, and Life Dynamics (WALD) campaign, a controlled ecosystem drought and rewet experiment focusing on VOC cycling. Meredith's teaching focuses on the theory and measurements that underlie ecosystem and atmospheric measurements of gas-phase compounds.