SEAS Faculty

Jose F. Alfaro

Assistant Professor of Practice

Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Systems

Dr. Alfaro’s work uses engineering and complex systems tools such as Agent-Based Modeling, System Dynamics, and Network Science. In line with his position as a Professor of the Practice, Dr. Alfaro’s scholarship has an applied focus.  This has led him to work closely with communities, industry, NGO’s, and government organizations in developing his work. Dr. Alfaro is also the founder and faculty director of Sustainability Without Borders, an interdisciplinary student organization that works with communities to develop ethical partnerships for learning and enhancing sustainability.  This organization labors to provide students with a meaningful engaged experience that also increases the capacity of the communities and NGO’s it works with and increases their well-being. 

Dr. Alfaro’s scholarship revolves around three main efforts:

1. Using Industrial Symbiosis at the small-scale to increase communities’ sustainability and well-being
2. Deploying renewable energy for sustainable development of least industrialized countries
3. Developing tools for policy and decision-making through computer modeling of socio-technical systems

Joe Árvai

Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise; Director, Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise

Behavior, Education and Communication, Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Systems

Dr. Joe Árvai is the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the School for Environment and Sustainability, and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. He is also the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. Joe is an internationally respected expert in the risk and decisions sciences, and he is a frequent advisor to governments, government agencies, NGOs, and the private sector.

The research carried out by Joe and his group has two main areas of emphasis: First, Joe and his research group conduct experiments and surveys aimed at advancing our understanding of how people—working individually and in groups—process information and make choices with a specific focus on how people make (or, often, attempt to avoid) necessary tradeoffs. Second, Joe and his team conduct research focused on developing and testing decision-aiding tools and approaches that can be used by people to improve decision quality across a wide range of environmental, social, and economic contexts.

Research in Joe’s group is applied, and accounts for decision-making by a broad spectrum of public and stakeholder groups, as well as by technical experts, business leaders, and policy makers. To support their applied focus, Joe and his group conduct research across a wide range topical and pressing decision contexts; these contexts range from environmental risk management and business strategy, to consumer choice and policy-making.  

A hallmark of the work in Joe’s group is making results and recommendations from their research available and—importantly—useful to wide range of audiences, including other scholars, policy-makers, business leaders, and the public.

Kathleen Bergen

Associate Research Scientist

Conservation Ecology, Environmental Informatics, Conservation & Restoration

Associate Research Scientist Kathleen Bergen, PhD, works in the areas of human dimensions of environmental change; remote sensing, GIS and biodiversity Informatics; and environmental health and informatics. Her focus is on combining field and geospatial data and methods to study the pattern and process of ecological systems, biodiversity and health. She also strives to build bridges between science and social science to understand the implications of human actions on the social and natural systems of which we are a part.

Jennifer Blesh

Assistant Professor

Conservation Ecology, Food

As a broadly trained agroecologist, Jennifer Blesh, PhD, uses interdisciplinary research approaches to understand how different agrifood systems impact ecological and social processes. Her ecological research focuses on soil nitrogen and carbon biogeochemical cycles, agroecosystem nutrient management, and legume nitrogen fixation. Blesh’s research program pays particular attention to alternative production-consumption relations, and is guided by a pragmatic motivation to support development of more ecologically sustainable and equitable food systems. Previous to her position at SEAS, Blesh served as a post-doctoral fellow with the National Science Foundation International Research Fellowship Program at the Federal University of Mato Grosso in Brazil. Current projects include assessing the socioecological resilience of family farms in Brazil, and research in the U.S. centered on cropping system diversification through winter cover crops and improving nitrogen retention in farm fields.

Bilal Butt

Associate Professor

Environmental Informatics, Environmental Justice

Bilal Butt, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability and a faculty affiliate of the African Studies Center. His research is concerned with the political ecology of pastoralism and protected areas in East Africa. He places a large emphasis on empirical fieldwork to understand the lived geographies of the interactions between pastoralists and wildlife in ecologically diverse regions. He combines various geospatial technologies (such as putting GPS units on cows) with historical and ecological dynamics of dryland environments to understand how people, wildlife and livestock are coping with and adapting to changes in climate and politics. He is also interested in the ways that scientific and technical appraisals of rangeland peoples and environments have misread the landscape, leading to orientalist approaches to development programs. He has also had a long history of engagement on questions of environmental conflicts, particular around wildlife poaching, land grabs and green eneregy. Dr. Butt is an NSF Career Award winner and has published in diverse journals such as the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Remote Sensing of Environment, Journal of Applied Ecology and Humanity. He teaches courses on Conservation and Development, Political Ecology, Environmental Security and Conflict, Environmental Governance, and Preparing for International Fieldwork. 

Bradley J. Cardinale

Professor; Director, Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR)

Conservation Ecology

Professor Cardinale is an ecologist who uses mathematical models, novel experiments, observational studies and meta-analyses to examine how human activities impact biological diversity, and to predict how changes in biodiversity affect the goods and services ecosystems provide to humanity. His research, teaching, and professional service are all tied together by a common thread, which is to produce and distribute the knowledge needed to conserve and restore the variety of life on Earth.

Professor Cardinale teaches classes in Conservation Biology, Ecological Restoration, and Ecosystem Services. He has published more than 110 scientific papers and popular articles, and won numerous awards. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Ecological Society of America.  In 2014, Cardinale was named one of ‘The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds′ by Thomson Reuters, one of the main sources of impact factors used in the assessment of scientific articles and careers. 

Stella Cousins

Research Scientist

Conservation Ecology

Dr. Stella Cousins is an ecosystem ecologist interested in understanding how and why forests change. She uses patterns measured in trees and forests such as growth, mortality, and community dynamics to reveal how ecosystems respond to human demands and disturbances. Her current research focuses on the drivers of tree mortality in California forests and the transformations that can be expected in ecosystems that experience rapid change. In earlier research she has examined forest carbon processes, air pollution impacts to montane forests, provision of watershed services, and the management of vegetated cultural landscapes. Her work leverages comprehensive surveys conducted by the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, long-term monitoring, and measurements ranging from individual tree rings to whole forest structures. Dr. Cousins is broadly interested in how landscapes can be sustainably managed for multiple benefits, which often involves collaborating on multi-disciplinary teams and investing in place-based data collection. She is especially interested in social-environmental problems facing the Western United States. Prior to joining SEAS, Dr. Cousins was an Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University and a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley. She completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and was a graduate fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). 

Bill Currie

Professor

Conservation Ecology, Environmental Informatics, Conservation & Restoration

Bill Currie, PhD, is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the environment and the development of sustainability science. His research and scholarly interests include ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry including carbon and nutrient cycling, physics and energetics, landscapes and coupled human-natural systems, land conservation and management, biofuels and food security, computational modeling and simulation, synthesis using models, and philosophical foundations of modeling.

Currie has a background in ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry (nutrient and carbon cycling), energetics, systems dynamics modeling and individual-based / agent-based modeling. He is interested in using our current understanding in these fields to investigate ecosystem change and dynamics in coupled human-environment systems.

Currie studies the linkages among carbon, nutrient, and water cycling and energy flows and transformations in terrestrial ecosystems and human-environment systems.  He is interested in using our current understanding of ecosystems to explore creative, new understanding of the two-way interactions in human-environment systems.  He works at scales from field plots to landscapes, collaborating with other researchers and students to integrate understanding and build models for synthesis.  The goal of this research is to contribute to the developing field of sustainability science using an approach that grows out of ecosystem science. 

Ivan Eastin

Research Professor

Sustainable Systems

Professor Ivan Eastin served as a professor and the Director of the Center for International Trade in Forest Products (CINTRAFOR) in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. He also served as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of the Environment, was the faculty leader for the Peace Corps Masters International Program in Forestry and Sustainable Resource Management and was named a UW CoMotion Presidential Innovation Fellow.

Internationally, his research focuses on understanding how trade policies, including timber legality regulations, affect the international trade of wood products in general and the competitiveness of US wood products in particular. Domestically, Eastin's research focuses on the process of innovation and evaluating the factors that influence the introduction and adoption of new wood products, including mass timber products such as thermally modified wood and cross-laminated timber. He also works with Native American communities to improve their capacity to more effectively market tribal wood products in the US and internationally.  

Ivan received his master’s degree in wood science and technology from Michigan Technological University (1985) and his doctorate degree in forest products marketing from the University of Washington (1992). He has served as a Fullbright Fellow in Ghana, a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia and in the US Army. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.

Johannes Foufopoulos

Associate Professor

Conservation Ecology, Conservation & Restoration

Johannes Foufopoulos, PhD, focuses his lab research on fundamental conservation biology questions and on issues related to the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. Major research projects examine how habitat fragmentation, invasive organisms and global climate change result in species extinction. Other projects address questions regarding the impact of diseases on wildlife populations and the environmental causes leading to disease emergence.

Bob Grese

Professor; Theodore Roosevelt Chair of Ecosystem Management; Director, Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum

Behavior, Education and Communication, Conservation Ecology, Landscape Architecture, Conservation & Restoration

Bob Grese serves as Director of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum. His teaching and research involve ecologically-based landscape design and management that respects the cultural and natural history of a region. Grese is particularly interested in the restoration and on-going management of urban wilds and the role such lands can play in re-connecting children and families with nature. He has long been fascinated by the work of early designers such as Jens Jensen and Ossian Cole Simonds who borrowed from the native landscape in their work, as there is much to be learned about their designs and their fate over time. He has a growing interest in green roofs and other low impact design strategies.

Rebecca D. Hardin

Associate Professor

Behavior, Education and Communication, Environmental Justice, Conservation & Restoration

Professor Hardin’s areas of interest and scientific study include human/wildlife interactions, and social and environmental change related to wildlife management, tourism, logging, and mining in equatorial Africa, especially the western Congo basin. Recent projects also focus on the increasingly intertwined practices of health, environmental management, and corporate governance in southern and eastern Africa, including sites in South Africa and Kenya. In 2013-14 she advised a student team studying environmental justice cases within the U.S., and connecting them to the international Environmental Justice Atlas. In 2014–15 she advised a student team assessing groundwater and surface water resources across the African continent, and advising GETF about how to make a better business case for water related investment by businesses in Africa. She teaches and mentors students interested in international environmental practice and policy, wildife management, human relationships to landscape, environmental justice, and global health. She also provides support for the students who are the genius behind SEAS's weekly environmental talk and music show, It’s Hot in Here, airing at noon on Fridays on WCBN FM 88.3, and with an accompanying blog and mp3 archive. The show helps researchers discuss their work with local audiences interested in environmental policy affecting Michigan, and also reach out to national and transnational audiences streaming the show via the Internet. Her recent book Transforming Ethnographic Knowledge explores the discipline of anthropology as a set of skills and tools for social change in sectors as different as business, biological conservation, conflict resolution, and biomedical care. Rebecca teaches courses in both SEAS and the Department of Anthropology, she also founded and coordinates SEAS's Environmental Justice Certificate Program for students beyond those two units working in or studying communities who are either negatively impacted by environmental harms, or experiencing inequality of access to environmental goods and ecosystem services.  Rebecca currently coordinates the Environmental Justice field of study and coordinates the Michigan Sustainability Cases initiative.

MaryCarol Hunter

Associate Professor

Behavior, Education and Communication, Landscape Architecture, Climate and Energy, Cities, the Built Environment, and Mobility

Dr. MaryCarol Hunter is a landscape architect and ecologist with a research program that encompasses social, psychological and ecological aspects of sustainable urban design.  Recently funded work focuses on the design of resilient urban green space under climate change and current work focuses on the impact of nature experiences on mental wellbeing.  She also develops research-based design guidelines in support urban sustainability by creating places that people appreciate and protect.

Pamela Jagger

Associate Professor

Environmental Policy and Planning, Climate and Energy

Pam Jagger is a global leader in interdisciplinary population and environment research. She is an applied political economist whose research focuses on the dynamics of poverty and environment interactions in low-income countries. She leads the interdisciplinary Forest Use, Energy, and Livelihoods (FUEL) Lab, and is the Director of the National Science Foundation funded Energy Poverty PIRE in Southern Africa (EPPSA), a 5-year collaborative program to support research and training on the topic of energy access in Southern Africa. FUEL Lab research is currently organized around three themes: environment and livelihoods, environmental governance, and energy poverty. The first theme focuses on quantifying the role of forests and the other environmental resources in household consumption and income generation, and understanding how contributions change in response to land use land cover change, implementation of conservation and development projects, and population dynamics. The second theme examines the livelihood impacts of changes in environmental governance and institutions on access to environmental goods and services. The third theme examines household energy access including understanding the effectiveness of interventions designed to mitigate energy poverty and improve access to electricity and cleaner cooking and novel research questions related to the effects of land cover and land use change on energy access and human health. Dr. Jagger has worked as a policy research scholar with the World Bank, Resources for the Future, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the Center for International Forestry Research. 

Thomas Johengen

Research Scientist

Conservation Ecology

Dr. Johengen is an Associate Research Scientist and Associate Director of the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR), which is a NOAA Joint Institute program at the University of Michigan with the NOAA-Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory serving as the host lab. CIGLR's research activities are focused around five themes including: Climate and Large-Lake Dynamics, Coastal and Nearshore Processes, Lare-Lake Ecosystem Structure and Function, Remote Sensing, and Marine Environmental Engineering. Dr. Johengen's individual research interests focus on nutrient cycling and lower food-web dynamics in the Great Lakes, controlling the introduction of invasive species, and development of in situ water quality sensors and observing systems.

Current research projects include: NOAA-CSCOR, Impacts of multiple stressors on the Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron ecosystem; NOAA-IOOS, Alliance for Coastal Technologies; NOAA-IOOS, Implementation of the Great Lakes Observing System; USEPA, Monitoring Long-trem trends in the lower food web of the Great Lakes; GLFT, Examining Causes and Consequences of the decline of Diporeia in the Great Lakes.

Greg Keoleian

Peter M. Wege Endowed Professor of Sustainable Systems; Director, Center for Sustainable Systems

Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Systems, Climate and Energy, Food, Cities, the Built Environment, and Mobility

Dr. Keoleian co-founded and serves as director of the Center for Sustainable Systems. His research focuses on the development and application of life cycle models and metrics to enhance the sustainability of products and technology. He has pioneered new methods in life cycle design, life cycle optimization of product replacement, life cycle cost analysis and life cycle based sustainability assessments ranging from energy analysis and carbon footprints to social indicators. Systems studied include alternative vehicle technology, renewable energy systems such as wind farms, photovoltaics and willow biomass electricity, buildings and infrastructure, information technology, food and agricultural systems, household appliances, and packaging alternatives.

Professor Keoleian currently teaches interdisciplinary graduate courses on Sustainable Energy Systems and Industrial Ecology and co-directs the Engineering Sustainable Systems Dual Degree Program and the Rackham Graduate Certificate Program in Industry Ecology.

Mark Lindquist, ASLA, PhD

Assistant Professor

Behavior, Education and Communication, Landscape Architecture, Cities, the Built Environment, and Mobility

Mark Lindquist, ASLA, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture. Mark’s research and teaching focus on the design and evaluation of high performance landscapes with an emphasis on multifunctional green infrastructure in urban areas. He is particularly interested in understanding how engaging with computation and data can transform the design process as well as inform decision making by stakeholders. Mark conducts empirical research with the aim of providing an evidence base to support the design and planning of environments that perform ecologically, socially and culturally for more sustainable outcomes.

Shelie Miller

Director, Program in the Environment; Jonathan W. Bulkley Collegiate Professor of Sustainable Systems; U-M Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Sustainability

Sustainable Systems

Professor Miller's research uses life cycle assessment and scenario modeling to identify environmental problems before they occur. Historically, our society has taken a reactionary approach to the environment. By proactively understanding the environmental issues of emerging technologies, we can identify a greater number of options and more creative solutions to avoid or reduce negative consequences. Miller's research group works on a variety of energy-related topics, including the energy-water nexus, bioenergy, refrigeration in the food system, and autonomous vehicles.

Michael R. Moore

Professor; U-M Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Sustainability; Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Systems, Water

Michael Moore's teaching involves courses in microeconomics, environmental economics, and ecosystem services. His research interests include water resource economics and environmental economics.  He has ongoing research to develop models of the environmentally responsible consumer (with applications to consumption of green electricity); to study land-use adaptation to weather risk and climate change; and to value water quality using the hedonic price method.

Joshua Newell

Associate Professor

Environmental Informatics, Environmental Justice, Sustainable Systems, Cities, the Built Environment, and Mobility

Joshua Newell is an assistant professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He is a broadly trained human-environment geographer, whose research focuses on questions related to urban sustainability, resource consumption, and environmental and social justice. Newell’s current research can be divided into two primary areas of interest. The first, Urban Infrastructure and Form, focuses on structural features of the urban form (e.g. built environment, transport, energy, and water infrastructure). The second research area, Urban Consumption and Commodities, focuses on the interrelationships between the consumption of consumer products, our responsibilities as global 'green' urban citizens, and the role of governance mechanisms and frameworks (including local institutions) in regulating product consumption. His research approach is often multi-scalar and integrative and, in addition to theory and method found in geography and urban planning, he draws upon principles and tools of industrial ecology, and spatial analysis.  Joshua teaches Sustainability and Society, a large undergraduate course, and Urban Sustainability, which is designed for MS and PhD students. He also leads a year-long interdisciplinary PhD student workshop that grapples with theories and concepts of urbanism, sustainability, and resilience.

Ivette Perfecto

George Willis Pack Professor

Conservation Ecology, Environmental Justice, Food

I am the George W. Pack Professor of Ecology, Natural Resources and Environment. My research focuses on biodiversity and arthropod-mediated ecosystem services in rural and urban agriculture. I also work on spatial ecology of the coffee agroecosystem and am interested more broadly on the links between small-scale sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and food sovereignty. I am co-author of four books, Breakfast of Biodiversity,  Nature’s Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty, and Coffee Agroecology, and Ecological Complexity and Agroecology.

My recent research is related to ecosystem services in agroforestry systems in Mexico and Puerto Rico. In Mexico my lab is investigating how local level multi-species interactions generate autonomous pest control in agroecosystems using coffee agroforests as a model system. We are also interested in critical transitions within the pest systems in coffee. In collaboration with John Vandermeer (University of Michigan) and Stacy Philpott (University of California-Santa Cruz) I established a 45-hectare plot in a shaded organic coffee farm in Chiapas, Mexico, and am conducting research on complex ecological interactions among pests, diseases and natural enemies. In Puerto Rico I collaborate with John Vandermeer and Javier Lugo (University of Puerto Rico, Utuado) in a project that examines tradeoffs and synergies among ecosystem services from coffee farms within the Model Forest of Puerto Rico. This project also investigates how ecosystem services (coffee and food provisioning, conservation of biodiversity, pest control, pollination and carbon storate) respond to local and landscape level factors.  In collaboration with Luis Garcia-Barrios from ECOSUR-San Cristobal (Mexico) I am also developing games to help farmers and students better understand ecological complexity in agroecosystems. After Hurricane Maria, we started a research project examining the resistance and resilience of coffee agroecosystems in the central mountainous region of Puerto Rico. Also, in collaboration with Casa Pueblo, a grassroots community organization, and Boricuá, a network of agroecological farmers in Puerto Rico, we are investigating how gasification, using biomass from farm residues and the trees knocked down by the hurricane, could de use to create a hybrid micro-grid that uses solar energy and syngas. We are also investigating the potential impact of the biochar generated through the gasification process on soil properties, plant growth and crop yield.

Teaching Interests:

I teach “Globalization and its Discontent: Struggles for Food, Water and Energy” (Environ 270), Diverse Farming Systems (NRE 553), and Field Ecology (NRE 556). In my courses I like to challenge students to think for themselves. Most of my courses have a strong Latin American flavor because I am from Latin America (Puerto Rico) and I conduct research in Latin America (Mexico, Mesoamerica and Puerto Rico). Most of my courses are interdisciplinary and are taught from a social justice perspective. I teach undergraduate courses in sustainable development and globalization, and the agroecology and political ecology of food systems, a graduate course in field ecology, a graduate course in diverse farming systems, and graduate seminars on topics that range from conservation in fragmented habitats to food sovereignty.

Tony Reames

Assistant Professor

Environmental Justice, Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Systems, Climate and Energy

As a multidisciplinary scholar, with degrees in engineering and social science, Assistant Professor Reames' research agenda seeks to connect the areas of technological advancement, the policy process, and social equity. His research extends the environmental justice scholarship to focus on energy justice. He is currently exploring disparities in residential energy generation, consumption, and affordability- focusing on the production and persistence of inequality by race, class, and place.

Paul Seelbach

Professor of Practice

Conservation Ecology, Water

Professor Seelbach's experiences bridge the academic study of aquatic ecosystems to its application across a range of resource management agencies. He has worked for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Division as Research Scientist and Statewide Research Director; for the USGS Great Lakes Science Center, as Coastal Ecosystems Branch Chief; for the Great Lakes Commission as Senior Science Advisor; and currently serves the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Office of the Great Lakes, as Senior Fellow. He has helped with major initiatives regarding watershed assessment and management, ecological flows and water allocation policy, water resources monitoring, coastal zone management, and revitalization of Areas of Concern.

Regarding science, Paul applies a landscape-ecology approach to understanding the structure and function of riverine and nearshore ecosystems. He is interested in system elements such as: spatial heterogeneity and context, scales and hierarchy, driving processes, and the human footprint.  Regarding aquatic practice, Paul is interested in promoting effective knowledge transfer to management and governance decision processes and in nurturing development of professional and leadership skills.

Dorceta E. Taylor

James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor; Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Environmental Justice, Environmental Policy and Planning, Food

Professor Taylor's research interests include urban agriculture, food access, and food insecurity; institutional diversity; analysis of the composition of the environmental workforce; social movement analysis; environmental justice; leisure and natural resource use; poverty; and race, gender, and ethnic relations. Her current research includes an assessment of food access in Michigan and other parts of the country. A recently-published article on food justice in Detroit entitled, "Food Availability and the Food Desert Frame in Detroit: An Overview of the City’s Food Systemstates" (Environmental Practice), exemplify this work.

Other recent research activities include the 2014 national report analyzing racial and gender diversity in the environmental field -- see The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations:  Mainstream NGOs, Foundations, and Government Agencies. Her 2009 book, The Environment and the People in American Cities (Duke University Press), is an award-winning urban environmental history book. She published an edited volume in 2010 entitled, Environment and Social Justice:  An International Perspective (Emerald Press).  She published oxic Communities:  Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility (NYU Press) in 2014. Her newest book, Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection: Social Inequality and the Rise of the American Conservation Movement (Duke University Press) is currently in press; it is slated for publication in 2015.

Brian Weeks

Assistant Professor

Conservation Ecology, Conservation & Restoration, Emerging Theme

Brian Weeks is joining SEAS on September 1 as an assistant professor, with courtesy appointments in LSA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB), as well as with the U-M Museum of Zoology. He is a conservation ornithologist and an evolutionary ecologist who studies the assembly of biological communities, and how different assembly histories can impact biotic responses to global change.Since 2017, Weeks has been at U-M, as a postdoctoral research fellow in EEB, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Museum of Zoology. He integrates his training in systematics and community ecology to examine community-level biotic responses to global change. In his research, he asks whether differences in the assembly histories of communities have altered their ecologies, with a focus on their vulnerability. Weeks’ research is focused on the birds of the Solomon Islands, and integrates field biology, molecular phylogenetics, and collections-based comparative morphology.

Ming Xu

Director, China Programs; Associate Professor

Environmental Policy and Planning, Sustainable Systems

Ming Xu is an Associate Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability and in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on the broad fields of sustainable engineering and industrial ecology. At the University of Michigan, he is a core faculty member in the Center for Sustainable Systems, co-directs the Graduate Certificate Program in Industrial Ecology, and currently serves as the Director of China Programs in School for Environment and Sustainability. He teaches Environmental Footprinting and Input-Output Analysis (EAS 573) and Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise (EAS 550/Strategy 566). He received the Robert A. Laudise Medal from International Society for Industrial Ecology for “outstanding achievement in industrial ecology by a researcher under the age of 36” in 2015 and the US National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2016. Currently he serves as the President of Chinese Society for Industrial Ecology and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Resources, Conservation & Recycling (2017 Impact Factor: 5.12). He was elected to Chair the 2022 Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology.

Donald R. Zak

Arthur F. Thurnau Professor; Burton V. Barnes Collegiate Professor of Ecology

Conservation Ecology, Conservation & Restoration

Don Zak holds a joint appointment in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, College of Literature, Science, and Arts. His research investigates links between the composition and function of soil microbial communities and the influence of microbial activity on ecosystem-level processes. This work draws on ecology, microbiology, and biochemistry and is focused at several scales of understanding, ranging from the molecular to the ecosystem scale. Current research centers on understanding the link between plant and microbial activity within terrestrial ecosystems, and the influence climate change may have on these dynamics. Teaching includes courses in soil ecology and ecosystem ecology.