Kathe Todd-Brown, PhD

Kathe Todd-Brown, PhD
Kathe Todd-Brown is a computational biogeochemist who uses mathematics and computer programs to understand how soil breaths. She focuses on soil informatics, model development and analysis to understand how soil carbon stocks will change in the next 100 years. Her work entails coding, working equations, and talking with lots of people about their science and experiments. Photo credit: Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Education

  • PhD – Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine. 2013
  • BS – Mathematics, Harvey Mudd College. 2004

Professional Experience

  • Assistant Professor, Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida, 2019-Present
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2019
  • Linus Pauling Distinguished Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2015-2018
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oklahoma, 2014
  • Research Assistant, Massachusetts General Hospital, 2007-2008

Professional Society Memberships

  • Member of: American Geophysical Union, International Soil Modeling Consortium
  • Data coordinator, International Soil Carbon Network

My story

I am a computational biogeochemist who uses mathematics and computers to understand how soil breathes.

Soils are a major source of natural carbon dioxide (the greenhouse gas driving current climate change); soils are expected to emit more carbon dioxide as climate gets warmer, potentially creating a vicious feedback cycle.

By using data from multiple worldwide studies and simplifying or expanding the complexity of soil models to interoperate that data, I strive to give society a better understanding of this critical climate response.

I am passionate about data and open reproducible science.

As we continue to move towards data-rich research, informatics skills to archive, increase discoverability, and harmonize different data streams become more and more important.

Through my work with the International Soil Carbon Network, I’m working with collaborators across the global to address harmonization issues in soils.

I have been a Postdoctoral Fellow (2019) with Drs Jennifer Baltzer (Wilfred Laurier University) and Merriett Turetsky (INSTARR, Guelph University), a Distinguished Linus Pauling Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Lab, a United States Department of Energy laboratory in Richland, Washington (2015-2018), and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oklahoma (2014). I received my PhD (2013) from the University of California, Irvine from the Earth System Science Department. I also hold a Bachelor of Science (2004) from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California in Mathematics and I have worked as a software developer for bioinformatics tools at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Github account: https://github.com/ktoddbrown

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4qJdWTsAAAAJ

ORCiD https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3109-8130