Construction and analysis of mechanistic, predictive, and empirically testable models in ecology and ecotoxicology via rigorous chemical and physical laws

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My main research objective is to understand the role of nutrients in the growth and competition of herbivores and biodegradation of bacteria, and to apply these new fundamental understandings to control deleterious populations and toxic organic matter, including species invasions and ecotoxicology. Control of invasive species has been an extremely important topic globally because the economic effects of invasive species are enormous (estimated global damages at $1.4 trillion annually according to the United Nations Environment Programme). Industry-induced pollution has been a severe environmental problem around the world as the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment have indicated. To guide experiments and management for solving these world-wide issues, mathematical modeling plays a pivotal and necessary role by connecting the known dynamical components, which usually fit together in complex nonlinear ways.