Elizabeth M Herndon

Bio

Elizabeth Herndon joined ORNL in 2019 and is currently a Senior Staff Scientist in the Plant-Soil Interactions Group within the Environmental Sciences Division. Dr. Herndon is an environmental geochemist broadly interested in understanding metal biogeochemistry and how metal cycling influences carbon and nutrient dynamics in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Her research incorporates various geochemical and spectroscopic techniques to understand how geochemical processes at the pore-scale influence ecosystem function at the watershed-scale. Her work has implications for understanding nutrient and carbon fluxes across multiple systems that include temperate headwater catchments, arctic tundra, and coastal deltas. Before starting at ORNL, Dr. Herndon was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology at Kent State University where she was received an NSF CAREER award to study biogeochemical interactions between manganese and carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. She completed her  completed her Ph.D. in Geosciences with a dual-title in Biogeochemistry at The Pennsylvania State University, and her B.A. with a double major in Earth and Planetary Sciences and Chemistry (Biochemistry concentration) at Washington University in Saint Louis. Dr. Herndon was also an ORNL postdoc with the NGEE-Arctic project through which she investigated iron and organic matter in arctic tundra.

Publications