EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Improving Understanding of Mercury Cycling in the Global Ocean

This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an Associate professor and training for a graduate student at Tulane University. This work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Amina T. Schartup at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Through the fellowship, the PI will improve understanding of how mercury moves through the global ocean and how it is transformed into methylmercury, a toxic form that accumulates in seafood and poses risks to human health and marine ecosystems. By combining long-term ocean observations, laboratory studies, and advanced computer modeling, the project will identify the processes that control mercury storage, transport, and transformation in seawater. The fellowship will strengthen research capacity at Tulane University, expand collaboration between an EPSCoR institution and a leading oceanographic research center, provide interdisciplinary training for students, and generate knowledge that supports environmental management and international efforts to reduce mercury pollution. This project will integrate global observational synthesis with process-based numerical modeling to reduce major uncertainties in ocean mercury cycling. The research will compile and harmonize decadal observations of mercury concentrations and chemical speciation from international oceanographic programs and combine these datasets with recent advances in experimental marine biogeochemistry. These observations will be used to improve mechanistic representations of particle-associated transport, mercury redox and speciation chemistry, and methylmercury formation within the Community Earth System Model ocean framework. The resulting model will quantify how biological productivity, particle export, ocean circulation, and environmental conditions regulate mercury storage, transformation, and exchange with the atmosphere. The fellowship will strengthen research infrastructure at Tulane University by expanding expertise in marine biogeochemistry, Earth system modeling, and observational data synthesis, while establishing long-term collaborative research and graduate training with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows (ERF). The ERF program supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.