EPS is pleased to announce that Professor Neal Blair (Ph.D. Stanford, 1980) has recently joined the department. Previously a faculty member at North Carolina State Universit, Dr. Blair's research has focused on the biogeochemical cycling of carbon. The novel use of stable and radiocarbon isotopes as probes into biogeochemical processes has been a specific emphasis of this research. Current studies with collaborators at NCSU include the evolution of particulate organic carbon as material travels from terrestrial sources to burial in the seabed, the preservation of potential soft-tissue organics in fossil bones, and the fate of organic pollutants in bioremediated soils. Professor Blair currently advises or co-advises three graduate students who are participating in those projects.

Professor Blair is coauthor on two publications in 2006 and one manuscript in press. He will assume the chairmanship of the Advisory Board for the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility this fall after serving on its advisory committee in 2005-2006. He has recently been funded by NSF with his collaborator, Elana Leithold (NCSU) to study the source to sink generation of biogeochemical stratigraphic signals across the Waipaoa margin in New Zealand. Fieldwork for that project began this summer.