Ana Gonzalez-Nayeck

About

I am an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science in the Natural Sciences Department at Baruch College, City University of New York. My research involves understanding how the products of photosynthesis move through ecosystems, both ancient and modern.

Broadly, my research focuses on the impacts of photosynthetic microbial communities on the natural environment, in ancient and modern ecosystems. For ancient ecosystems, I develop methods that use the ratio of carbon stable isotopes, a chemical signal that some organic molecules retain for billions of years, to work out how the original photosynthetic organism allocated its carbon and what that tells us about the environment it lived in. For modern ecosystems, I use the chemical and taxonomic composition of microbial communities as indicators of specific environmental conditions, such as light, sediment accumulation, and oxygen levels. Because my research is centered on specific tools rather than specific questions, I can collaborate with researchers working across wide temporal and spatial scales.

I joined Baruch in 2023 and founded the Baruch Microbial Biogeochemistry Lab (BMBL), which began its first on-campus experiments in Spring 2024. The lab works with collaborators at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Hudson River Park Trust. Before Baruch, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Williams College. I earned my Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and my B.A. in Earth Science at Columbia University.

My teaching and mentoring are shaped by my own experience as a first-generation undergraduate and graduate student. My goal is to make the environmental sciences accessible to all students, regardless of prior experience, and to bring undergraduates into real research early in their careers.