Dr. Melanie Mayes was one of four Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researchers to receive a 2016 US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) Early Career Research Program research grant. The program, now in its seventh year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.
Dr. Mayes’ proposal, “A Comprehensive Framework for Modeling Emissions from Tropical Soils and Wetlands,” selected for funding by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), has as its goal development of a framework for modeling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in tropical regions that takes into account factors such as microbial traits and functions, soil characteristics, different microbial energy sources, and soil moisture. Tropical wetlands are important contributors to GHG emissions worldwide; however, tropical biomes are extremely complex, and many of the factors contributing to GHG emissions are poorly understood and thus poorly represented in models.