Benjamin Sulman

I use computer models and ecosystem-atmosphere flux measurements to study ecological responses to climatic and environmental changes from local to global scales. My work is collaborative and interdisciplinary, incorporating models, measurements, and theory across a wide range of spatial scales and integrating soils, vegetation, hydrology, and climate. My experience with both models and field measurements puts me in a great position to bridge the modeling and empirical communities and transfer knowledge between experiments and models.

I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Astronomy at Oberlin College in 2006. I completed my Masters and Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences department. Working with Dr. Ankur Desai, I used the eddy covariance method to measure and analyze how peatland carbon cycling responds to changes in water table depth.

After completing my Ph.D, I did postdoctoral work at Princeton University, working with the land model development group at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Next, I spent two years at Indiana University, where I worked with Dr. Kim Novick and the Morgan Monroe State Forest Ameriflux site and with Dr. Rich Phillips on interactions between plants, mycorrhizae, and soil. I returned to Princeton University in 2015 to develop biogeochemical processes for the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory global land model.

In 2017-2018, I worked as a Project Scientist in the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the University of California, Merced on multiple biogeochemical modeling and analysis projects. My collaborators there include Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Dr. Teamrat Ghezzehei, and Dr. Fernanda Santos.

I am currently a research staff member in the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where I am working on computer modeling of plant-soil interactions and biogeochemical cycles.