PNNL

Avni Malhotra is a biogeochemist and ecosystem ecologist focused on ecosystem carbon cycling and plant-soil interactions. She specializes in carbon-rich ecosystems such as peatlands and wetlands, which are globally significant but vulnerable sinks of carbon. Avni employs a multi-scale approach where fine-scale process investigations in the lab and field are placed in a broader context using global data syntheses, and model-data integration. She is also passionate about building ecological and soil databases to aid syntheses and models. 

• Global change
• Wetlands
• Peatlands
• Permafrost
• Root traits
• Soil carbon
• Methane
• Carbon dioxide
• Databases

Current Research

Avni’s current research focuses on how belowground plant traits influence carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions across a variety of ecosystems including peatlands, coastal systems, and permafrost. 

Through her role as data synthesis co-lead in the COMPASS-FME project, Avni focuses on belowground plant traits, and carbon pools and fluxes in coastal ecosystems that are undergoing hydrological change. Her research tools include synthesizing data to generate hypotheses for field and lab experiments within COMPASS-FME, and interfacing with models such as ELM. 

Avni also leads multiple projects that leverage artificial intelligence tools to expedite data collection and harmonization, and discovery in belowground ecology, carbon fluxes, and soil science.    

• Doctor of Philosophy, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
• Master of Science, Villanova University, Philadelphia, USA
• Bachelor of Science (Honors), York University, Toronto, Canada

Postdoctoral training: 

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, USA
• Stanford University, Stanford, USA 

Past appointments:

• Senior Scientist, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
• Course lecturer for Quantitative Methods, McGill University, Montreal, Canada        

Advising*

Ongoing:

• Tiia Määttä: Plant above and belowground traits as predictors of wetland methane function (PhD candidate)
• Steven Caron: High-latitude nutrient cycling (postdoctoral mentee, main advisor: Dr. Mingzhen Lu at New York University)

Completed:

• Nicholas Ofiti: Peatland soil carbon sources and stability (postdoctoral mentee)
• Nadja Hertel: Quantifying root litter carbon cycling in degraded peat soils (Masters student)
• Melina Bucher: Vegetation-soil/water relations in raised bog areas of different degradation stages (Masters student)
• Nisha Sriskandarajah: The role of root traits in CH4 fluxes from rice cultivation in degraded peat soil (Masters student)
• Melina Bucher: Boreal peatland fine root responses to temperature and water table changes (Bachelors thesis)

*All students are based at the University of Zurich unless noted otherwise

Synergistic Activities

• Associate Editor for JGR-Biogeosciences
• Review Board member for the journal Biogeochemistry
• International Soil Carbon Network, Coordinator
• American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting Program Committee and Chair (2018-2021)
• Advisory board member for ICON Science (2022-present) 
• Led the workshop ‘Linking root traits and soil carbon on a global scale’ at the Climate Change Science Institute and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, July 2018, Read Eos meeting report here.

Please see my Google Scholar page for a detailed list