Our Current Team
Owen A. Sherwood, PhD
Assistant Professor, Laboratory Director
Owen received a BSc and a MSc in Geology from McMaster University in 2000 and 2002, respectively, and a PhD in Earth Sciences from Dalhousie University in 2006. All of these projects concerned the use of isotopic records preserved in corals to monitor oceanic change. He has worked as a post-doc researcher in oceanography and petroleum geoscience, and has worked commercially for Imperial Oil in Canada, and as a lab manager for Dolan Integration Group in Boulder, Colorado. Before transferring to Dalhousie in 2017 to establish the Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry Laboratory, he was a Research Associate with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Boulder, Colorado.
Chelsea Fougère, BSc & Adv Dip GIS
Laboratory Manager
Chelsea has a BSc with Honours in Environmental Science (Biology) from St. Francis Xavier University (2013) and an Advanced Diploma with Honours in GIS from the NSCC Centre of Geographic Sciences (2015). They worked for three years as a database administrator, GIS technician and data modeller with the Flux Lab, before joining our team in early 2019. Chelsea's research interests to date include succession in coastal shrub communities, measuring methane emissions from anthropogenic sources, and now compound-specific isotope analysis of organic compounds.
Simone D. Booker, PhD
Post Doctoral Fellow
Simone received a BSc (Honors) and a PhD in Geology from the University of Alberta in 2015 and 2020, respectively. Her undergraduate honors project focused on clastic sedimentology looking at hydrocarbon reservoirs in the Triassic Charlie Lake Formation, BC, Canada. Whereas her PhD thesis focused on carbonate sedimentology, geochemistry (stable isotopes and rare earth elements), and paleoclimatology from tropical coral skeletons and sediment cores in the Cayman Islands, British West Indies, over the last 500,000 years. After graduation, she joined the Sherwood group to on compound-specific stable isotope analyses of amino acids and radiocarbon in deep cool water corals in the Gulf of Maine region.
Shaomin received her BSc (Hons) in Applied Biology from City University of Hong Kong in 2015, and her MSc in Biological Oceanography from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in 2018. Her MSc thesis focuses on marine biogeochemistry,
carbonate chemistry and climate change. During her study, she also gained experience in food web analysis using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. After her graduation, she
joined the Sherwood lab to pursue her PhD in Earth Sciences. Her thesis research focuses on developing a new biogeochemical proxy for Arctic sea ice algae using compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) of amino acids.
PhD Candidate
Shaomin Chen
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Nina Golombek
PhD Candidate
Nina received her BSc in Geosciences and MSc in Geology from University of Potsdam in 2017 and 2019, respectively, in cooperation with the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) working on oxidation of organic carbon during floodplain storage and fluvial transport. Her masters thesis focused on seasonal variations in organic carbon export and changes in isotopic signatures. She studied and gained lab experience at UCL in London during her ERAMSMUS+ semester working in the Bloomsbury Environmental Isotope Facility as well as during her reaseach assitantship at the AWI Potsdam - Helmholz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. After her graduation, she joined the Sherwood lab to pursue her PhD in Earth Sciences in cooperation with the Oceanography department. Her thesis research focuses on compound-specific isotope analysis of amino acids on deep-sea corals and sediments cores to reconstruct the variability in nutrient-plankton dynamics over the last 2000 years in the Scotian Shelf and Gulf of Maine region.
Rachel Noddle
MSc Candidate
Rachel received her BSc (Honours) in Earth and Environmental Science from Dalhousie University (2020). Her honours thesis was conducted in the stable isotope lab and aimed at identifying areas of point-source pollution along coastal Nova Scotia using the isotopic signature of nitrogen in filter-feeding mussels. During her undergrad, Rachel worked in the Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide which kick-started her passion for using isotopes to better understand surficial processes. Rachel is continuing this passion with an MSc project that explores the nitrogen isotope biogeochemistry of sewage wastewater for use as bioindicators in the marine environment.
Past Members
Blake Tibert
Chemical Engineering Co-op Student
Blake Tibert is a proud Nova Scotia local. He is currently studying Chemical Engineering at Dalhousie University and is scheduled to complete his degree by 2021. Blake was with us for two successive co-op placement terms from January to August of 2019. He was invaluable in helping us to develop and implement operating procedures, as well as in helping to keep the lab running smoothly day-to-day.
MSc Graduate
Kim Taylor
Kim received her BSc in Earth Science and Aquatic Resources (2017) and her MSc in Earth Science (2020) from St. Francis Xavier University. Kim was a visiting graduate student at Dalhousie University working on the Gas Seepage Project (GaSP) which focused on a study to assess groundwater methane occurrence in proximity to legacy coal sites in Nova Scotia. During her MSc, Kim received the NSERC scholarship and completed a Mitacs internship with Altus Geomatics and the Flux Lab which focused on methane emissions from oil and gas sites in Alberta. Currently, Kim is working on her publication with Science of the Total Environment and will be starting the PARDP program with Natural Resources Canada in the Fall.