Research

    Research Areas

    • Oceanography

    2025-present     Assistant Professor, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    2021-2025          Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

    2014-2021           PhD, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, California, USA

    Mittelbach, B., White, M., Rhyner, T., Haghipour, N., Perga, M.-E., Dubois, N., Eglinton, T. Deltaic burial of authigenic calcite modulates the CO2 sink of hardwater lakesIn discussion at Biogeosciences. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2891 

    Genco, B., White, M., Koester, I., Vargas, S., Saunders, J., Saito, M., Garcia Maldonado, J., Aluwihare, L., Beman, J.M. Tropical cyclones drive oxygen minimum zone shoaling and simultaneously alter organic matter production. Science Advances, 11(23), eado8335 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado8335 

    White, M., Mittelbach, B., Escoffier, N., Rhyner, T., Haghipour, N., Janssen, D., Perga, M.-E., Dubois, N., Eglinton, T. Seasonally dynamic dissolved carbon cycling in a large hard water lake. JGR: Biogeosciences 130 (3), e2024JG008645 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JG008645 

    Mittelbach, B., Brunmayr, A., White, M., Rhyner, T., Haghipour, N., Blattmann, T., Wessels, M., Dubois, N., Eglinton, T. Pre-aged organic matter dominates organic carbon burial in a major perialpine lake system. Limnology & Oceanography 70 (4): 911-924 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.12815

    Rhyner, T., Broeder, L., White, M., Mittelbach, B., Brunmayr, A., Hagedorn, F., Storck, F., Passera, L., Haghipour, N., Zobrist, J., Eglinton, T. Radiocarbon signatures of carbon phases exported by Swiss rivers in the Anthropocene. Philosophical Transactions A. 231-2261 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0326 

    White, M., Nguyen, T., Koester, I., Lardie Gaylord, M., Beman, J.M., Smith, K., McNichol, A., Beaupré, S., Aluwihare, L. Refractory dissolved organic matter has similar chemical characteristics but different radiocarbon signatures with depth in the marine water column. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 37, e2022GB007603 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GB007603

    Koester, I., Quinlan, Z., Nothias, L., White, M., Rabines, A., Petras, D., Brunson, J., Duhrkop, K., Ludwig, M., Boecker, S., Azam, F., Allen, A., Dorrestein, P., Aluwihare, L. Illuminating the dark metabolome of Pseudo-nitzschia-microbiome associations. Environmental Microbiology 24:5408–5424 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.16242 

    Phillips, A., White, M., Seidel, M., Wu, F., Pavia, F., Kemeny, P., Ma, A., Aluwihare, L., Dittmar, T., Sessions, A. Novel sulfur isotope analyses constrain sulfurized porewater fluxes as a minor component of marine dissolved organic matter. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119 (41): e2209152119 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209152119 

    White, M., Rafter, P., Stephens, B., Mazloff, M., Wankel, S., Aluwihare, L. Stable isotopes of nitrate record effects of the 2015–2016 El Niño and diatom iron limitation on nitrogen cycling in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Limnology and Oceanography 67 (10): 2140–56 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.12194 

    Beman, J.M., Vargas, S., Wilson, J., Perez-Coronel, E., Karolewski, J., Vazquez, S., Yu, A., Cairo, A., White, M., Koester, I., Aluwihare, L., Wankel, S. Substantial oxygen consumption by aerobic nitrite oxidation in oceanic oxygen minimum zones. Nature Communications 12:1 12: 1–11 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27381-7 

    Petras, D., Minich, J., Kunselman, E., Wang, M., White, M., Allen, E., Aluwihare, L., Dorrestein, P. Non-targeted tandem mass spectrometry enables the visualization of organic matter chemotype shifts in coastal seawater. Chemosphere. 271 (May): 129450 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.129450 

    White, M., Rafter, P., Stephens, B., Wankel, S., Aluwihare, L. Recent Increases in Water Column Denitrification in the Seasonally Suboxic Bottom Waters of the Santa Barbara Basin Geophysical Research Letters 46 (12): 6786–95 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082075 

    Cyronak, T., Andersson, A., D’Angelo, S., Bresnahan, P., Davidson, C., Griffin, A., Kindeberg, T., Pennise, J., Takeshita, Y., White, M. Short-Term Spatial and Temporal Carbonate Chemistry Variability in Two Contrasting Seagrass Meadows: Implications for pH Buffering Capacities. Estuaries and Coasts 41 (5) (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-017-0356-5