I am broadly interested in the role of microbial communities in terrestrial carbon cycling, particularly the interactions between soil microbes and soil organic matter (SOM) composition and stability. My dissertation research takes an interdisciplinary approach to carbon biogeochemistry. I am measuring SOM quantity and chemical quality along ~1.5 meter-deep soil profiles in order to understand how soil carbon changes with depth and age. This work will involve physical and chemical fractionations as well as thermal analysis and 13C NMR to characterize SOM functionalities. In conjunction with this work I am using a suite of molecular techniques and biochemical assays to profile microbial community diversity, structure and functional characteristics spanning the same depth profiles. The sampling design for this study incorporates depth profiles on fully factorial combinations of the two dominant parent materials (granidiorite and volcaniclastic) and three dominant forest types (tabunuco,