Native San Antonian, took an interest in the Cretaceous rocks and fossils of South Texas at an early age. Interests involves using sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleontology, petrography, and stable isotope geochemistry to reconstruct past environments. Interests in understanding global climate in deep-time particularly times of global warmth such as the mid-Cretaceous, the early Eocene and the Miocene to early Pliocene. Much of Suarez's research involves continental deposits, especially paleosols (fossilized soils), and the carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions of pedogenic carbonates. Field work has included collecting samples from South Texas to Utah, to as far as Northwest China.