Dr Aristilde’s areas of expertise are in the combined application of experimental and computational tools in chemistry and biochemistry to gain novel molecular insights underlying the dynamics of organics in environmental processes. The goal of the Aristilde Group is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the “why” and “how” of the environmental behavior of organics, with implications for nutrient cycling, ecosystem health, agricultural productivity, and environmental biotechnology. Her group seeks to figure out the mechanisms responsible for the physical and biological fates. The current research activities of her group are focused on (i) cellular carbon metabolism of organic substrates in environmental bacteria, (ii) catalytic dynamics of nutrient-cycling extracellular enzymes, (iii) the physical chemistry of biomolecules and organic contaminants in environmental matrices, (iv) molecular ecotoxicological targets of organic contaminants.