ABOUT MEClimate Change EcologyI am interested in understanding how climate change affects plant community composition, species distributions, and plant traits.
As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Global Change Biology at the University of Michigan, I am co-advised by Drs. Kai Zhu and Peter Reich. My research focuses on community-climate disequilibrium and its effects on community compositional changes and ecosystem function. I received my PhD at Michigan State University in the Integrative Biology department and the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior program in Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske's Spatial and Community Ecology lab. My dissertation focused on multiple aspects of plant responses to climate change, including plant trait responses to a long-term in situ climate manipulation experiment, plant chemical emission changes due to warming and drought, and a global meta-analysis of plant responses to warming. Prior to my PhD, I received my B.S. in Biology (Ecology, Evolution and Behavior) at Penn State Behrend, where I was advised by Dr. Michael Campbell. My research as an undergraduate included climatology studies (Lake Erie's microclimate effects) and potato fungal suppression techniques (using 1,4-dimethylnapthalene). |