PhD Candidate
Atmospheric Physics
Sabrina has loved physical sciences since grade school and was always fascinated by physics and space documentaries. In addition to her love for physics, Sabrina is very passionate about the environment and found it difficult to decide between the two disciplines. Despite being the first in her family to study sciences in higher education, she was strongly encouraged by her family, friends, and high school teachers to follow her passion. In the end she decided to pursue a physics major at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, just south of her hometown. Despite the small size of the physics department there, she learned a lot and found a great sense of community and support from peers and professors which pushed her to continue following her goals.
When moving towards the end of her undergraduate degree, she was again conflicted between continuing her passion for physics and pursuing her interests in environmental issues. At many schools, graduate studies in environmental sciences fell into a separate category from physics. However, she was ecstatic after discovering that the University of Toronto’s Physics Department has the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Physics (EAPP) group as this would allow her to combine her two passions. After talking to her now supervisor, Debra Wunch, about studying the carbon cycle from a physics perspective, she was hooked. Sabrina has really enjoyed working with this group due to its wide variety of approaches to studying the carbon cycle, enabling group members to follow their own ideas while still receiving guidance and chances for collaboration. She also really appreciates this group’s interests in educating one another about topics in equity diversity and inclusivity, and the encouragement to have a healthy work-life balance.
Sabrina now studies fluxes of carbon dioxide to and from vegetation using satellite measurements of solar-induced fluorescence, a light signal emitted by plants during photosynthesis, as well as observation-driven vegetation models. In particular, she is studying biogenic CO2 fluxes in and around the Greater Toronto Area with a special focus on vegetation in the city of Toronto and the Greenbelt of Ontario which surrounds the Greater Toronto Area. After graduation, Sabrina hopes to work somewhere like Environment and Climate Change Canada where she can continue researching the carbon cycle.
Outside of her studies, Sabrina loves spending time in nature, including gardening in her local community garden and hiking. She also enjoys cooking with her partner, drawing, and playing board games with friends.