Current research focuses on the following topics:

● Paleoclimate Research:   Ancient soils or paleosols provide a record of ancient soil formation process, and paleoenvironment such as hydrologic setting, prevailing climate, CO₂ concentration, and vegetation present during the soil formation process. In particular, this information is recorded in the stable isotopes of oxygen (dependent on available water and temperature) and carbon (dependent on source) in the carbonate rich soils and is routinely used as proxies for paleoclimate reconstruction.  Currently we are analyzing the oxygen and carbon isotope composition of cretaceous carbonate paleosols in Texas, which will be utilized to reconstruct the paleoclimate. 

● Isotopic Composition of Local Meteoric Water: Long term monitoring of oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition of local precipitation in San Antonio, Texas.  These results will be used in groundwater research. 

● Evolution of Isotopic composition in the Edwards Groundwater, south-central Texas

● Carbon isotopic composition of peat, and paleoclimate reconstruction: Environmental variations during vegetation results in various isotope fractionation in various plants. d¹³C profiles in peat bogs could be a valuable tool to reconstruct past climates. Better quantitative understanding of the potential relations between carbon isotope variations of plants and the temperature of vegetations, may result in new tool for paleoclimate reconstruction.

● Geochemistry of Ocean Island Basalts

● Isotopic Evolution of the Earth:  To understand the isotopic evolution of the Earth, and specifically, how the various isotopic systems have evolved through time in various terrestrial reservoirs (e.g., lower and upper mantle, lower and upper continental crust, atmosphere).  One of the primary goals is to reconcile geophysical evidences (that support whole mantle convection) with the geochemical signatures (that support layered mantle convection) observed in terrestrial reservoirs.  We try to solve numerical models of mass, and species transport, and obtain the most plausible solution that mimics the present day Earth.