About me

Quantitative forest community and ecosystem ecology

Hello! I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Ecosystem Physiology & Global Change Lab at West Virginia University, where I study how forests respond to anthropogenic pressures over timescales from years to centuries.

Research interests

Broadly, I am interested in improving our ability to predict changes in terrestrial community composition, species range distributions, and biome distributions. I use a variety of modeling tools and data across scales to quantify how changes in vegetation during observational time scales (the last ~50 years) scale up to long-term changes in communities, ecosystems, and biomes. I use the eastern United States as a study system, which has undergone substantial changes as a consequence of anthropogenic land use and climate changes over the few centuries.

Teaching interests

I am passionate about broadening participation in quantitative ecology through undergraduate education. Quantitative skills are essential for students to develop, but can also be difficult to master because of lack of resources for learning math in context and because of students’ own belief that they are incapable. I use ecological forecasting as a unifying framework for simultaneously teaching ecological theory, quantitative skills, and data literacy in a decision-relevant context.