Curriculum vita

EDUCATION

Summa cum laude

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

• Investigated climate sensitivity of Appalachian forests
• Produced forecasts of the impact of past land use change and land management decisions on future forest resilience to climate change

HONORS & AWARDS

PUBLICATIONS

Near-term ecological forecasting for climate change action

Dietze, M., White, E. P., Abeyta, A., Boettiger, C., Bueno Watts, N., Carey, C. C., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Emanuel, R. E., Ernest, S. K. M., Figueiredo, R., Gerst, M. D., Johnson, J. R., Kenney, M. A., McLachlan, J. S., Paschalidis, I. C., Peters, J. A., Rollinson, C. R., Simonis, J., Sullivan-Wiley, K., Thomas, R. Q., Wardle, M., Willson, A. M., Zwart, J. (2024). "Near-term ecological forecasting for climate change action." Nat. Clim. Change.

Defining model complexity: An ecological perspective

Malmborg, C. A., Willson, A. M., Bradley, L. M., Beatty, M. A., Klinges, D. H., Koren, G., Lewis, A. S. L., Oshinubi, K., Woelmer, W. M. (2024). "Defining model complexity: An ecological perspective." Meteor. Appl.

Assessing opportunities and inequities in undergraduate ecological forecasting education

Willson, A. M., Gallo, H.^†, Peters, J. A., Abeyta, A., Bueno Watts, N., Carey, C. C., Moore, T. N., Smies, G., Thomas, R. Q., Woelmer, W. M. & McLachlan, J. S. (2023). "Assessing opportunities and inequities in undergraduate ecological forecasting education." Ecol. Evol. 13:e10001.

The NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge

Thomas, R. Q., Boettiger, C., Carey, C. C., Bietze, M. C., Johnson, L. R., Kenney, M. A., McLachlan, J. S., Peters, J. A., Sokol, E. R., Weltzin, J. F., Willson, A. M., Woelmer, W. M. & Challenge Contributors^†. (2023). "The NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge." Front. Ecol. Environ. 21:112-113.

Climate and hydraulic traits interact to set thresholds for liana viability

Willson, A. M., Trugman, A. T., Powers, J. S., Smith-Martin, C. S. & Medvigy, D. (2022). "Climate and hydraulic traits interact to set thresholds for liana viability." Nat. Commun. 13:3332.

Ten simple rules for training yourself in an emerging field

Woelmer, W. M., Bradley, L. M., Haber, L. T., Klinges, D. H., Lewis, A. S. L., Mohr, E. J., Torrens, C. L., Wheeler, K. I., & Willson, A. M. (2021). "Ten simple rules for training yourself in an emerging field." PLoS Comput. Biol. 17:e1009440.

PUBLICATIONS IN PRESS & REVIEW

• Willson, A. M., O’Grady, H., Guaita, P. R., Shuman, I. N. C.^†, Dawson, A., Crippa, P., McLachlan, J. S. (in review). “Vegetation was not uniformly in equilibrium with climate during a period of climate stability.” Ecosphere
• Shuman, I. N. C.^†, McLachlan, J. S., Peters, J. A., Heilman, K. A., Kowalski, C., Willson, A. M. (in review). “Both environmental gradients and feedbacks determine the historical distribution of forest, savanna, and prairie ecosystems in the Midwestern United States.” Ecography
• Sjodin, A., Stokes, G., Gallagher, C., Javadian, M., Lewis, A., Schreiner, C., Super, L., Tuschhoff, B., Willson, A. M., Dietze, M., McLachlan, J., Peters, J. (in review). “Toward a standard lexicon for ecological forecasting.” Front. Ecol. Environ.

PUBLISHED EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

• Sjodin, A., Haber, L., LaDeau, S., Willson, A. M., Lofton, M., Moore, T. M., Tabares-Mendoza, O., Dalbotten, D., McLachlan, J., Dietze, M. & Peters, J. (2021). “Ecological forecasting student resource: Overview of forecasting, potential careers, helpful courses.” QUBES Educational Resources. http://dx.doi.org/10.25334/8VRF-WS31.
• Willson, A. M. & Peters, J. (2021). “Ecological forecasting repository of online educational resources.” QUBES Educational Resources. http://dx.doi.org/10.25334/XAW7-JW16.

^†Denotes undergraduate advisee

GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS

^†Note that I could not be a named Co-I due to graduate student status

PRESENTATIONS

Both environment and feedbacks are important drivers of macroscale forest, savanna, and prairie biome distributions in the Upper Midwest, USA

December 13, 2024

Contributed Presentation at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Washington, D.C.

Comparing model-data fusion methods for parameter estimation and state variable prediction using a forest gap model

June 11, 2024

Contributed Presentation at Ecological Forecasting Initiative 2024 Conference, Virtual

Investigating climate-vegetation relationships using historical and paleoecological data

October 15, 2023

Invited Presentation at University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

Stepwise hierarchical model building for ecological inference in long-lived communities

October 01, 2023

Invited Presentation at Emory University, Atlanta, GA

Biotic interactions moderate the climate-vegetation relationship over the last 2,000 years of the pre-Industrial Holocene in the Upper Midwest, U.S.

August 10, 2023

Contributed Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America; American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA

Assessing opportunities and inequities in undergraduate ecological forecasting education

August 16, 2022

Talk at Ecological Forecasting Initiative 2022 Conference; Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Virtual and Montreal, Canada

Developing forecasting resources for Indigenous resource management

April 20, 2022

Invited Panel Presentation at Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study Resilience Conference, Notre Dame, IN

Paving the way for a more diverse next generation of ecological forecasters

August 03, 2021

Talk at Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Virtual

Climate and hydrualic traits interact to set thresholds for liana viability

August 03, 2021

Contributed Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America; American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Virtual

Abiotic factors affecting the prevalence of Rosa multiflora (Rosaceae) populations at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute (Hastings, Michigan, USA)

September 01, 2018

Contributed Presentation at Aquinas College Annual Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Symposium (Grand Rapids, MI); Michigan Academy of Science, Arts & Letters Conference (Alma, MI); West Michigan Regional Undergraduate Science Research Conference (Grand Rapids, MI); Pierce Cedar Creek Institute Final Report Meeting (Hastings, MI); Aquinas Collge Summer Research Poster Session (Grand Rapids, MI), Grand Rapids, MI; Alma, MI; and Hastings, MI

Invasive species at Aquinas College as a representation of invasive species in the Grand Rapids area

April 01, 2018

Contributed Presentation at Grand Rapids Intercollegiate Honors Conference, Grand Rapids, MI

Little Grand Canyon parcel management plan

August 01, 2017

Contributed Presentation at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, Hastings, MI

The use of second-person singular pronouns among young speakers in Costa Rica

March 01, 2016

Contributed Presentation at Michigan Academy of Science, Arts & Letters, University Center, MI

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Taught ecological forecasting to undergraduate students in the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program at California State Polytechnic University–Humboldt
• Submitted student-developed forecasts to the NEON Forecasting Challenge
• Developed student internship investigating forest succession hypothesis formulation in mechanistic process models

• Biostatistics Tutorial TA (BIOS 42411) (Spring 2021)
• Molecules to Ecosystems Lecture TA (BIOS 10172) (Spring 2020)
• Big Questions Lecture TA (BIOS 10170) (Fall 2019)

ACADEMIC SERVICE

• Peer reviewed manuscripts for Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (1 review) and Nature Ecology and Evolution (3 reviews)

• Reviewed ~100 abstracts per year submitted to the Ecological Society of America annual meetings

• Attended and peer reviewed student poster presentations at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting

• Wrote letters to a sixth grade pen pal as part of his science curriculum
• Encouraged interest in science and education for middle school students

• Mentored 7 undergraduate interns on multiple ecological forecasting projects
• Organized two international workshops on ecological forecasting education occurring in June 2021
• Collated over 200 online resources for learning ecological forecasting
• Contributed to ongoing efforts as a member of the Education Working Group; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group; Theory Working Group; Steering Committee; and Student & Early Career Association

• Coordinated a 2-day international conference for students and early career professionals
• Organized monthly international Student & Early Career Association meetings
• Organized the Ecological Forecasting Initiative 2022 Meeting

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS