Joel Fassbinder of the Biometeorology Group

MS Candidate

As an undergraduate, I studied geology and anthropology at the University of Iowa. My honors thesis compared the chemical signatures of chert artifacts from an American Indian archaeological site in northwest Iowa to the chemical signatures of known chert outcrop regions throughout the Upper Midwest in an attempt to find the sources of the artifacts. This was done by using inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) as well as a physical properties comparison.

I began my MS at the University of Minnesota in the Spring of 2007. I am currently researching the carbon exchange between the biosphere and lower atmosphere in relation to periods of precipitation, flux measurements of carbon dioxide concentrations in the lower atmosphere on the ecosystem and landscape scales, and heterotrophic and autotrophic partitioning of ecosystem respiration using stable carbon isotopic analyses.