CHM 0208
Chemistry Building
8051 Regents Drive
College Park, MD 20742

gantian [at] umd [dot] edu

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I am interested in understanding the synergistic evolution between life and environment over the Earth’s history. My Ph.D. research has focused on the origin of terrestrial fungi c.a. 635 million years ago to answer:

1) When did fungi colonize on land?
2) What are the implications of fungi fossils for paleoenvironment?

As a postdoc, my current research integrates geochemistry into sedimentology and paleontology. Specifically, I employ lithium and uranium isotopes to understand the life-environment co-evolution at the start and end of the Neoproterozoic Era (c.a. 1,000 and 538 Ma, respectively), which are two transitional periods critical for eukaryote diversification, multicellular evolution, and animal explosion.