Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series presents Dr. Rebekah Stein

 Wednesday, November 8 at 1:00 PM in Student Center 120

Quinnipiac Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society Seminar Series 

presents Dr. Rebekah Stein, 

Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Quinnipiac University 

“Environmental Controls on Plant ‘Isotope Biogeochemistry’”

The topics of this talk primarily center on carbon and its bonds with other elements in common organic compounds within plants. Namely, plants change their isotope biogeochemistry as a result of changed physiological behavior in times of stress (often related to environmental stressors). This includes factors such as atmospheric composition (e.g., carbon dioxide, oxygen), water availability (e.g., precipitation), temperature, and more. These changes can be measured in the laboratory and can be used as tools to examine the impacts of climate change on our biological carbon sink as well as feeding behaviors (in agriculture and humans, microbes, pollinators, and more). The breadth of uses for isotope biogeochemistry is wide; this talk will demonstrate several potential uses, including those going on at QU.

Rebekah Stein graduated with a PhD in Environmental Geochemistry & Paleoclimatology from the University of Michigan in 2020, where she focused on how modern and ancient plants and soils were impacted by carbon dioxide and water availability. She continued this work in more complex plant compounds during a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley until she joined the faculty at Quinnipiac University. She teaches environmental science and chemistry courses from her role in the Department of Chemistry & Physical Sciences.