My current research projects reflect these interests. I recently completed a study examining how effectively constructed wetlands can improve the quality of water drained from agricultural lands. This work focused primarily on reducing nutrient loading into adjacent surface waters and draws on both the results of computer models and ongoing field studies in Maryland, Illinois, and Iowa. I am also involved in a number of projects in the immediate Shippensburg area, focusing primarily on the local Burd Run watershed. Burd Run begins within the Michaux State Forest atop South Mountain, flows across thick Pleistocene colluvial deposits at the base of the mountain, and finally across karst limestone terrain in the Cumberland Valley.
Land use varies from forest, to agriculture, to urban.
I am working with several graduate and undergraduate students studying watershed geochemistry, surface water-groundwater interaction, and development of a stream restoration plan for a small area near the SU campus. An effort is currently underway to restore the Burd Run stream channel, riparian zone, and floodplain wetlands within the Shippensburg Township Park adjacent to the SU campus. Several SU faculty are collaborating with the Cumberland County Conservation District, Shippensburg Township, and many other organizations on this project. A National Science Foundation grant supports this effort. Most of the research in which I am involved, and most of my teaching, tends to cut across disciplinary lines, linking together elements from sciences such as geology, geomorphology, hydrology and aquatic biology.