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Name | Affiliation | Description of potential work |
Jake Allgeier | EEB | Our research seeks to understand the controls on production in tropical coastal ecosystems. To do this we seek to identify the mechanisms by which behavioral, population, and community dynamics mediate nutrient and energy pathways. The overarching objective is to improve our ability to predict ecological outcomes, and enhance conservation efficacy such as the sustainability of ecosystem services with a particular focus on fisheries and blue carbon. |
Karen Alofs | SEAS | We focus on the impacts of environmental change on freshwater fish populations and communities. Our approaches range from physiological labs experiments, to studies of museum speciemens, to analysing long-term and large scale patterns. Topics include climate warming, species invasions, habitat restoration, and fisheries management. |
Jennifer Blesh | SEAS | Our research on sustainable food systems integrates ecosystem ecology and social science focusing on two central themes: (i) understanding links between crop diversity and ecosystem functioning in agroecosystems, with an emphasis on soil C storage, legume N fixation, and reducing agriculture's impacts on global change, and (ii) understanding transitions toward sustainability and resilience in social-ecological systems. |
Allen Burton | SEAS-EES | My research deals with freshwater and marine sediment, stormwater and aquatic contaminants; understanding chemical bioavailability, stressor causality linkages, real-time assessments of oil spills and ecological risk. Ranking chemical and nutrient stressors in the face of climate change drivers (heat, flooding, drought, fire) is critical for effective restoration and adaptation management. |
Neil Carter | SEAS | Our research group focuses on two central themes: (i) reciprocal interactions between people and wildlife in shared landscapes, and (ii) data-driven approaches to improve conservation planning. General research areas include: (1) endangered species conservation in shared landscapes; (2) understanding human-wildlife coexistence in a global change context; (3) spatial ecology for conservation decision making; and (4) interdisciplinary approaches to reducing illicit wildlife trade. We use diverse methods such as ecological field monitoring, GIS and remote sensing, social surveys, statistical and simulation modeling, and meta-analysis. |
Aimee Classen | EEB | Classen is a terrestrial ecosystem and global change ecologist. Broadly, her group explores how ecosystems function and how biotic and abiotic interactions influence patterns and processes within and among communities and ecosystems. She works across scales from the micro (soil food webs) to the macro (regional carbon fluxes) as well as across diverse terrestrial ecosystems. Her group uses a combination of observations, experiments, and models to answer ecological and global change questions. |
Greg Dick | EES | We study the microbial ecology of toxic cyanobacterial blooms, which threaten freshwater systems globally and are intensifying with changing climate and land use. Key aspects of cyanobacterial bloom dynamics remain unresolved, including the drivers of toxin production and management strategies needed to reduce the size and toxicity of blooms. Our group takes a multidisciplinary approach, including field limnology, environmental "omics", laboratory microbiology and biochemistry, and computational modeling. We are particularly interested in the environmental controls on production of novel and known toxins, microbial interactions, and the role of intraspecies diversity in underpinning bloom dynamics. We work closely with the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Lab, the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes research, and their private and non-profit partners. |
Melissa Duhaime | EEB | We study microbes (bacteria, archaea, picoeukaryotes, and their viruses) in the context of global environmental health challenges. Our research spans two major themes: (1) Plastics Pollution and (2) Viruses of Microbes, which we address with a combination of large-scale microbial community omics, cultivation, microscopy, virus-host model system development, and field-based studies. In our plastics work we study how microbe-microplastics interactions impact the fate of aquatic plastic pollution, such as through plastics weathering and biodegradation and the toxic or stimulatory effects of plastics on microbial processes. In our viral work we study the impacts of microbe-virus interactions on microbial processes and phenomena, such as in toxic cyanobacterial blooms and the biological sequestration of carbon in the Southern Ocean. |
Paige Fischer | SEAS | Our research group focuses on how people change their behavior in response to environmental change, specifically in forest ecosystems, to reduce risk and increase their well-being. We investigate factors that enable and constrain individual and collective management of forests for sustainability and adaptation, drawing on theories from the social-psychology, sociology, and human geography and using mixed methods approaches. We collaborate with researchers from diverse disciplines using a broad range of analytical approaches and strive to address problems of concern to policy makers, planners and land managers. Our primary goal is to increase scientific understanding of human behavior as it relates to the environmental sustainability and adaptation to climate change. |
Johannes Foufopoulos | SEAS | Members of the group investigate how anthropogenic stressors, like habitat fragmentation, global climate change, and invasive organisms (including emerging pathogens), impact global biodiversity and ecosystem function. Much of the focus is on the world’s islands, as well as mediterranean-type ecosystems. In addition, we investigate the ecology of parasitism and disease in vertebrates by studying the ecological, physiological and evolutionary aspects of host-parasite interactions. To do so, we employ an integrative approach with methodologies borrowed from field ecology, comparative physiology, ecological immunology, evolutionary biology and population genetics. |
Carina Gronlund | ISR--Survey Research Center--Social Environment and Health Program; School of Public Health--Department of Epidemiology--Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health | Her current work focuses on the health benefits of weatherization, and quantifying and mapping the timing and full range of health effects from extreme heat, extreme precipitation, and pollen and their intersections with infectious disease in vulnerable populations in the U.S. Her research team largely uses mixed effects regression modeling on survey data and large databases of medical records, mortality records, and medical billing data. Topics include climate change and health and intersections of infectious disease (especially COVID), climate change, and health. |
Ines Ibanez | IGCB - SEAS | Our major research interests focus on the current challenges that plant communities are facing in the context of global change, i.e. climate change, invasive species, and landscape fragmentation. We are particularly interested in the effects of climate change on the structure of natural communities and how these efefcts interact with other factors including nitrogen deposition, phenological shifts, plant-soil feedbacks. We are also very interested in developing statitistical model aimed at integration and forecasting. |
Valeriy Ivanov | CoE, CEE | Our research is in the domain of ecohydrology and ecophysiology. A lot of current work focuses on tropical rainforest systems trying to understand how trait diversity works towards resilience to meteorological and hydrological droughts. For example, we have been looking at proxies of traits representing drought hydraulic resistance, stomatal sensitivity to ambient environment, or water uptake potential. We use field-collected data (eastern and central Amazonia), remote-sensing data, and ecohydrological modeling. |
Tim James | EEB | We study fungal communities and species using genomics to track population history, community structure, and to understand ecological function. We are particularly interested in the role of habitat loss and globalization on the movement and distribution of fungal pathogens. |
Meha Jain | SEAS | My research examines the impacts of environmental change on agricultural production, and how farmers may adapt to reduce negative impacts. I also examine ways that we can sustainably enhance agricultural production. To do this work, I combine remote sensing and geospatial analyses with household-level and census datasets to examine farmer decision-making and agricultural production across large spatial and temporal scales. |
Gretchen Keppel-Aleks | CLaSP | Research in the Keppel-Aleks group is focused on understanding feedbacks between climate change and the global carbon cycle. 50% of anthropogenic emissions are taken up by the oceans and terrestrial biosphere, but the future of these natural services for climate mitigation are uncertain. We use atmospheric and remote sensing observations to assess interactions between climate variations and carbon cycle variations over a range of temporal and spatial scales. We also use process-based models to assess the significance of potential feedbacks between climate and environmental conditions and ecosystem behaviors. We are especially interested in how ecosystem responses to climate stressors affect gross ecosystem exchange processes and fire emissions to the atmosphere. |
Jenan Kharbush | EES | I'm a chemical oceanographer and microbial biogeochemist. My research focuses on the roles of microbes in nutrient cycling, especially nitrogen, in aquatic environments. My lab uses a combination of analytical chemistry, isotope geochemistry, and molecular approaches to study how changes to nitrogen cycling and availability affect microbial communities. Specifically, I am interested in how nitrogen form and amount may affect toxicity of harmful algal blooms. I am also interested in how interactions between phytoplankton/algae and heterotrophic bacteria facilitate nitrogen cycling in freshwater environments. |
Naomi Levin | EES | My group’s research centers on understanding how terrestrial landscapes and organisms respond to past climate change. We primarily use stable isotopic records to study interactions between mammals, vegetation, and climate in past ecosystems. Our work involves a combination of geologic fieldwork, isotopic lab work, and modern analog studies. Active projects include reconstructing Pliocene and Pleistocene environments from sedimentary and isotopic records preserved in eastern and southern Africa, understanding hydrologic change during interglacials in Peru using lake and cave carbonates, probing how soil carbonates form in the western US, understanding and communicating water balance in the Mono Basin, and building isotope records of Holocene lake level change in the Great Lakes region. Much of this work centers on leveraging the power of high precision Δ17O measurements from sedimentary archives and the hydrosphere, in modern and ancient systems. |
Marie O'Neill | School of Public Health, Departments of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences | Our team is interested in quantifying and projecting future climate-sensitive health outcomes including adverse birth outcomes (preterm, low birthweight), mortality and morbidity and in linking epidemiologic and mixed methods research with community solutions to enhance resilience and health equity. Opportunities include working with secondary data, including remote sensing landcover data, direcly measured air pollution and temperature data, administrative data on health outcomes, and Census data. Biological insights into how global change may impact human health through mechanisms including thermal stress, inflammation, stress pathways, infection and others can guide both adaptation and mitigation measures and is of special relevance to vulnerable and marginalized populations. |
Ben Passey | EES | Passey's research focuses on the evelopment and application of methods in isotope geochemistry for studying (paleo)ecology, (paleo)physiology, and (paleo)climate. A new method that is hot off our presses enables the high-precision triple oxygen isotope analysis of a range of materials, including organic compounds and bioapatites. The triple oxygen isotope composition of animal tissues relates to water balance thermophysiology and the climatic setting of the animal, and this approach can be applied to modern animals as well as extinct animals (through analysis of fossilized bioapatites). The triple oxygen isotope composition of plant leaf waters, and by extension tree-ring cellulose, is sensitive to relative humidity, and thus application of these new methods promises to improve our ability to reconstruct recent climate change (past 100's to 1000's of years) using tree ring-based approaches. |
Peter Reich | Institute for Global Change Biology | His research focuses on multi-scale responses of forests, savannas and grasslands to global change factors, including rising CO2, climate warming, precipitation change, and altered disturbance regimes. Potential topics include plant metabolism, phenology, biodiversity and compositional change, plant-soil interactions, ecosystem physiology, biogeochemical cycling, ecosystem services, or a combination thereof. |
Nate Sanders | IGCB - EEB | We focus on the causes and consequences of biodiversity change, both within and among species. We do community ecology and macroecology, mostly with a focus on ants, plant-insect interactions, and alpine plant ecology. |
Nathan Sheldon | IGCB-EES | My group works at the interface between climate change processes and biogeochemical responses at scales ranging from the microbial to the global, and on timescales that range from deep-time to projecting the future. Members of the group work on lakes, soils, and plants using a mixture of empirical, experimental, and modelling approaches to examine the roles of environmental change, nutrients, and redox chemistry as controls on the carbon cycle. |
Selena Smith | EES | My research groups focuses on understanding plant evolution, diversity, and morphology over long time scales (Cretaceous to present) and plants' interactions with the environment. We study both fossil and modern plants, employing a variety of approaches including microCT, stomatal measurements, and stable carbon isotopes. Current focal groups include conifers (pines, redwoods, arborvitae & relatives) and monocot flowering plants (grasses, palms, gingers, pondweeds, & relatives). Current active research is on Cretaceous deposits in Western North America and Antarctica, evolutionary history of Alismatales and Pandanales, conifer and monocot leaf architecture and function, and restoration of manoomin. |
Allison Steiner | CLAP | Research in the Steiner group is focused on understanding the role of the terrestrial biosphere in atmospheric chemistry and climate. From the climate perspective, the biosphere can exchange energy and moisture to the atmosphere and affect the atmospheric boundary layer, clouds and precipitation. For chemistry, the terrestrial vegetation emits a large suite of gases and particles that affect atmospheric composition. Chemistry and climate processes at this interface are closely linked. We’re interested in understanding the feedbacks between the atmosphere and biosphere for both chemistry and climate, including the role of reactive trace gases (biogenic VOC, like isoprene) and particles (like pollen and secondary organic aerosol). |
Natalia Umaña | EEB | We study the mechanisms that maintain biodiversity in forest communities of tropical and temperate regions under the influence of climatic changes. Our research examines forest dynamics, demography, and functional traits within and across species. |
Runzi Wang | SEAS | My research studies change in natural and urban environments across space and over time, with the objective to drive positive change with ecological planning and design strategies. Combining technologies such as big data, machine learning, remote sensing, and spatial statistics, my primary research explores how land cover change and urban development pattern influence stream water quality and stormwater quality at the watershed basis, together with a variety of environmental, climatic and sociocultural factors. |
Brian Weeks | SEAS | We use functional traits, most-often derived from museum specimens, to understand: 1) how species have responded to recent environmental change (e.g. through changes in size, shape, and/or phenology), and 2) how biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships impact extinction risk in natural systems and across large spatiotemporal scale. We tend to work on birds, but happily use whatever taxa/systems make the most sense for a particular question. |
Ben Winger | EEB | We seek to bring an organismal and evolutionary perspective to current global change dynamics. Topics related to global change biology that we study include 1) ecological and evolutionary dynamics of seasonal migration, including responses to myriad anthropogenic pressures, 2) the ecology and evolution of geographic range, especially in birds and other vertebrates and 3) how life history differences among species mediate responses to global change. Our research is field-, lab- and specimen-based, both leveraging and contributing to the scientific capacity of museum research collections. |
Derek Van Berkel | SEAS | My research focuses on understanding land change at diverse scales; the physical and psychological benefit of exposure to natural environments; and how digital visualization of data can add new place-based knowledge in science and community decision-making. My expertise is in spatial statistics, data science, big data, and machine learning. I am currently a Co-PI on an NSF grant examining how online webtools can enable the public to co-create landscape designs for novel solutions to climate-change adaptation and mitigation in urban areas. He is also part of the NOAA funded GLISA project (https://glisa.umich.edu/our-work/projects/) developing land change models to support knowledge discovery in municipalities throughout the Great Lake States. My work in Social Media examines scalable methods for understanding photographic content, and the spatial determinants of recreational behavior |
John Vandermeer, Ivette Perfecto | EEB | We study ecological pest control on coffee farms in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Our project is funded by NSF (in Mexico) and USDA (in Puerto Rico). We employ concepts from complex systems to understand the complications of the ecology of managing the major pests of coffee in the two areas, including comparative studies (island versus mainland). Activities include everything from intensive sampling in the field to ecological modelling. |
Don Zak | SEAS-EEB-IGCB | Our research focuses on the ecological and environmental factors shaping the composition and function of soil microbial communities, and the role these communities play in the cycling and storage of C and N in terrestrial ecosystems. |