Work Experience
2024 -
Present
2018 - 2024
2019
2016 - 2018
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow
CU Boulder - Boulder, CO
Supervisor: Professor Boswell Wing
Research Focus: Anaerobic organic degradation, nutrient recycling, global biogeochemical modeling.
Geobiology Ph.D. Candidate
Caltech - Pasadena, CA
Supervisor: Professor Alex Sessions
Research Focus: Light stable isotope method development, anaerobic microbiology, metabolic modelling.
Guest Student Researcher
Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Pasadena, CA
Supervisor: Dr. Peter Willis
Research Focus: Astrobiology, amino acid racemization during organic extractions.
Research Scientist
MIT - Cambridge, MA
Supervisor: Professor Roger Summons
Research Focus: Organic geochemistry of Antarctic lakes, molecular fossils.
Education
2024
2020
2017
California Institute of Technology |
Geobiology M.S.
Northeastern University |
Chemistry & Environmental Science B.S.
California Institute of Technology |
Geobiology Ph.D.
Outreach
2020-Present
2021- 2023
2021- 2022
2019-2021
GO-Outdoors Initiative
With a group of Caltech graduate students, developed a program that creates and disseminates lesson plans and field trips for K-12 teachers in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). Our website here!
The mission is to enable young students of color to comfortably explore the outdoors using place-based learning.
Funded and organized month-long outreach programs in environmental microbiology with high school students through the MBL ROCS grant. These pilot programs have sparked sustainable relationships with PUSD.
Chembites Writer
Wrote and edited monthly articles on scientific publications for public consumption. My posts typically focus on organic geochemistry, astrobiology, and stable isotope biogeochemistry. My profile can be found here.
Orbitrap Educational Writer
Built educational modules for a future, public online platform that will help others to design and execute Orbitrap mass spectrometry measurements of stable isotope ratios. This work is in collaboration with researchers at Caltech, Penn State, and University of Texas at El Paso.
RISE Tutor
Weekly tutoring high school students in the Pasadena school district on subjects in science and math
California Institute of Technology |
Geobiology M.S.
Northeastern University |
Chemistry & Environmental Science B.S.
Publications
Mueller, E., Panehal, J., Meshoulam, A., Song, M., Boettger, J., Hansen, C., Heuer, V., Warr, O., Bach, W., Hinrichs, K., Eiler, J., Orphan, V., Sherwood Lollar, B., Sessions, A. Isotopic evidence of acetate turnover in Precambrian continental fracture fluids. Nature Communications. 15, 9130 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53438-4
Mueller, E., Wu, F., Sessions, A. Quantifying Isotopologue Reaction Networks (QIRN): A modelling tool for predicting stable isotope fractionations in complex networks. Chemical Geology. (2022) 610, 121098. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2022.121098
Mueller, E., Sessions, A., Sauer, P., Weiss, G. & Eiler, J. Simultaneous, High-Precision Measurements of δ2H and δ13C in Nanomole Quantities of Acetate Using Electrospray Ionization-Quadrupole-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry. Analytical Chemistry. (2022) 94 (2), 1092-1100. 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c04141
Matys, E. D., Mackey, T., Grettenberger, C., Mueller, E., Jungblut, A., Sumner, D. Y., … Summons, R. E. “Environmental controls on bacteriohopanepolyol profiles of benthic microbial mats from Lake Fryxell, Antarctica.” (2019). Geobiology, 17(5), 551–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12353
Matys, E. D., Mackey, T., Grettenberger, C., Mueller, E., Sumner, D. Y., Hawes, I., & Summons, R. E. “Bacteriohopanepolyols across environmental gradients in Lake Vanda, Antarctica.” (2019). Geobiology, 17(3), 308–319. https://doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12335
Awards
NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellowship
3 Minute Thesis (Third Place, video)
Hummel-Gray Award
Resnick Sustainability Institute Scholar
European Association of Organic Geochemistry Research Award
MBL Research Outreach &
Communication in STEM Award
Waksman Scholarship for Microbial Diversity
Caltech Center for Microbial Environmental Interactions (CEMI) Grant
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS)
Sears B. Condit Award
American Institute of Chemists Student Award
Northeastern University Environmental Science Award
2024 - 2027
2024
2024
2023-2025
2022
2021
2021
2021
2018-2023
2018
2017
2017
2017