The College of Science is pleased to welcome environmental chemist Dr. Juliana D'Andrilli to UNT's biological sciences department as one of their newest Associate Professors. Though she is not teaching classes this semester, she is excited to dig into her research interests as a part of the Advanced Environmental Research Institute. Her work focuses specifically on carbon cycling in aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric environments.
"I look at energy transfer at the molecular level, such as microscopic organic materials, which can be found globally even where you least expect it," Dr. D'Andrilli said. "I've spent fifteen years developing a global catalog of organic material signatures using various analytical chemistry instruments. Organic matter signatures not only can be used to understand the transfer of energy within and across ecosystems but can also act as a guide for surveying other planetary bodies for life."
Through this research, Dr. D'Andrilli said she has developed a great respect for individual and grouped ecosystem data sets in order to advance our understanding of carbon cycling patterns around the world. Her goal is to encourage students and colleagues to be curious about how ecosystems function so they can share their excitement with their peers and future aspiring scientists.
"I am most excited to help students develop a relationship with how Earth systems work in local and distant environments," she said.
Dr. D'Andrilli obtained her B.S. in Chemistry in 2003 from Mary Washington College (Fredericksburg, Virginia), worked as a chemist at Estee Lauder's Research & Development Park for a year (Melville, New York), and then obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2009 from Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida). She completed two postdoctoral appointments at Montana State University and was an Assistant Research Professor there for five years before joining the faculty as an Assistant Professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in 2019. She values interdisciplinary and creative avenues for learning and is excited to share that passion with her students at UNT.
"Maybe students aren't expecting to have multiple forms of creative expression in their science classes when learning concepts or understanding how ecosystems work, but we learn the most and reach the most diverse audiences by engaging with art, music, humor, theatre, movement, and writing," she said. "Essentially, it creates multiple ways to think more deeply about science."
The College of Science is thrilled to have another award-winning faculty on board. Dr. D'Andrilli's research article, "An international laboratory comparison of dissolved organic matter composition by high resolution mass spectrometry" (published in Limnology and Oceanography Methods in 2020) received two awards: outstanding and high-impact ASLO publication in 2020-2021 and high impact article from the ASLO journals in 2023.