Malissa Ann G. Tayo-Sanchez

Biography

Malissa Ann G. Tayo-Sanchez, M.S., is an Assistant Specialist III in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, where she works at the Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility. Her research focuses on soil carbon dynamics and climate change impacts in terrestrial ecosystems, with particular emphasis on understanding how temperature, mineralogy, and depth control soil organic matter composition and carbon storage. She has conducted field research in diverse environments including Hawaiian tropical montane wet forests, Alaskan boreal forests and arctic tundra, and varying California ecosystems such as grasslands, coastal sage scrub, and riparian desert.

Tayo-Sanchez completed her M.S. in Natural Resources and Environmental Management at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2023, where her thesis examined climate, mineralogy, and depth controls on soil organic matter composition and carbon storage in Hawaiian tropical montane wet forests. Her graduate research involved directing three field campaigns on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi to collect deep soil core samples along a mean annual temperature gradient, followed by extensive laboratory analyses including soil density and size fractionation, radiocarbon measurements, and statistical modeling. She received her B.S. in Earth System Science from the University of California, Irvine in 2020, with a specialization in Hydrology and Terrestrial Ecosystems and a minor in Global Sustainability.

In her current role at the Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility, Tayo-Sanchez supervises visiting researchers, undergraduate and graduate students in sample preparation, radiocarbon analysis, and laboratory standard operating procedures. She conducts physical and chemical pretreatment of organic and carbonate samples for radiocarbon and stable isotope analysis, maintains vacuum line equipment, and provides technical support for data analysis. Her work has been presented at multiple conferences including the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting and the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, and she has contributed to published research on boreal forest dynamics in Alaska.

Education

• M.S. in Natural Resources & Environmental Management, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2023
• B.S. in Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, 2020

Distinctions

• National Science Foundation GRFP Honorable Mention, 2020
• UCI ESS Undergraduate Research Departmental Service Award, 2020
• Achievement Scholarship, 2023
• Summer Research Fellowship, 2022
• UCI ESS CalSpace Award, 2019
• Best Undergraduate Student Poster, UCI 3rd Annual Environmental Research Symposium, 2019