Department of Environmental Sciences
University of Virginia
291 McCormick Road, P.O. Box 400123
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4123
Voice: 434-924-6541 pacem@virginia.edu
Research Interests
Aquatic Ecosystems
Food Webs
Carbon Cycling
My research focus is on freshwater and estuarine ecosystems. I’m intrigued by the interactions between aquatic organisms and the trophic and biogeochemical processes they mediate. Limnology, the study of inland water ecosystems, is a wonderful discipline for examining the forces that drive natural systems. Streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs provide a diversity of study sites for testing ecological questions. I highly value conducting large scale manipulation experiments, taking advantage of natural experiments, and conducting comparative ecosystem analyses as a way to learn. Current research projects and the interests of colleagues that work in my lab group are described under the Research and People tabs.
Professional History
I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia. I did my graduate work at the University of Georgia (M.S. in Zoology and Ph.D. in Ecology). I started my post-graduate career as a Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University and was an Assistant Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii for two years. Prior to joining the University of Virginia faculty in 2008, I was a Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York.
