How do over a thousand species of trees coexist in an area the size of ~100 football fields? What happens to fire-prone forests when a non-native pathogen is introduced and kills high numbers of just a few species? I am a plant community ecologist, and those are two examples of questions I investigate in my research on forest diversity. I explore the relative importance of biotic interactions, disturbance, and the abiotic environment in driving dynamics. My students and I do field research on pathogens and natural regeneration in the old growth conifer forests of the Columbia River Gorge. I have ongoing research programs in both the coastal forests of the western US, where a recently introduced pathogen is transforming forest diversity, and in the tropical rainforests of eastern Ecuador, where I have a long-term project on the role of natural regeneration in the maintenance of the hyperdiversity in Amazonian forests.
Academic Credentials
Postdoctoral Training, University of California, Davis. Plant Pathology.
PhD University of California, Berkeley, 2007. Integrative Biology
AB Princeton University, 1998. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Teaching
BIO 201 – Biological Core Concepts: Systems
BIO 323 – Plant Biology
BIO 370 – Disease Ecology