In his work, Follett combines a broad background in oceanography with a foundation in physics to answer systems-level questions about marine nutrient cycles. Starting with simple concepts and equations, he collaborates heavily with both modelers and experimentalists in an approach that has so far led him to advances in understanding the cycling of dissolved organic carbon in the deep ocean, the persistence of the summertime export pulse of carbon in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, and the invention of novel methods for the measurement of nitrogen fixation from diel measurements of particulate elemental ratios. He has also been heavily involved in work connecting the genetic relationship between organisms to their chemical fingerprint, and has also worked on utilizing big-data approaches to understand the interactions between the physical and ecological structuring of the surface ocean. In addition he has recently been advising a project connecting estimates of primary production and export flux through the moments of their probability distributions.