Graduate Students

Anjali's research examines how species interactions (both intra and inter) and physical forces interact to regulate the recovery of foundation species to environmental stressors. She aspires to develop novel ecosystem-based restoration and management practices to restore foundation species worldwide, while also working to ensure communities of color have equitable access to a healthy ocean.

Hanshi studies how urbanization, climate warming, and habitat change interact to influence vegetation phenology. She is also interested in quantifying the subsequent impact of phenology changes on terrestrial ecosystem functions and services. She recently started working on a project that aims to understand the outcomes of ecological restoration in Forest-grassland ecosystems of Sub-Sahara Africa.

I think elephants are amazing in a hundred different ways. I want to understand how long term reintroductions of elephants have changed tropical forests relative to historic ecosystem states, with an eye towards evaluating whether rewilding ecosystem engineers can be employed as a quantitative and empirically supported tool in the conservation bat-belt. I also aim to conduct research that directly supports elephant conservation in SE Asia.

How does seed production help forests sustain themselves into the future? What can we learn about these forest dynamics from dramatic climate change of the past (Last Glacial Maximum to today)?

Disease ecology, zoonotic disease transmission, OneHealth, conservation

Kira studies tree fecundity and its role in supporting wildlife across ecosystems. Her research combines food web dynamics, climate modeling, and field data to explore how mast supply and herbivore demand shape wildlife populations, seedling recruitment and ecosystem resilience under changing environmental conditions.

Spencer's research seeks to understand how saltwater intrusion and sea level rise affect carbon cycling in coastal freshwater wetlands and coastal blackwater rivers.

My research focuses on wildlife disease ecology in African ecosystems, with particular interest in how host-parasite interactions, environmental variability, and biodiversity shape patterns of disease transmission and persistence in natural communities.

Endocrinology, parasitology, and social behavior in lemurs; Meerkat offspring behavioral development

Rongfei is interested in responses of biodiversity to urbanization and climate warming across scales in the Couple Human And Nature Systems (CHANS). She applies integrated tools, like LiDAR, ecoinformatics, causal inference and ecological modelling to disentangle the underlying complex mechanisms to inform conservation practices.

Interest in ecosystem effects on community function. Currently working on how the environment affects food web structure and nutrient cycling in the mutualistic aquatic communities within the fluid of pitcher plants

Infectious disease at the human-animal-environment interface (One Health), zoonosis and spillover, disease ecology, AMR, epidemiology