Scientists

Landscape ecology emphasizing secondary succession, regeneration, and disturbance dynamics in subarctic and boreal forest. Current research includes modeling boreal forest dynamics, fuel loading, developing custom fuel models, fire-climate interactions.

I devote most of my research to some of the oldest and slowest-growing animals in the sea: sea turtles, sharks, sturgeon, and west coast rockfish. I primarily use computer models and simulations to help us understand how these animals respond to human impacts and to guide research and management policy towards their recovery. I am particularly interested in how these animals will respond to climate change and increasing human populations on our coastlines.

Dr. Shannon McNeeley received her doctoral degree in Environmental Change and Sustainability Science (ecological anthropology, ecology, climatology) from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the interdisciplinary Resilience and Adaptation Program as an NSF IGERT Fellow then as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her doctoral research focused on climate variability and change impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity of indigenous people (Athabascan Indians) in the remote, rural Interior region of Alaska. This was in close collaboration with tribes, state, and federal agency partners. She first began working for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in 2000 as an associate scientist before starting her doctoral degree in the fall of 2004. Her work is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural incorporating the social and natural sciences in order to understand human-environment relationships and how people are impacted by and respond to environmental change. She has been involved in climate change education and research for over 16 years. Most recently, as a postdoctoral fellow at NCAR, her research focused on water scarcity and sustainability in the context of climate variability and change and the Yampa/White Basins region of northwest Colorado. Then as a research fellow at the School of Natural Resources and Environment the University of Michigan, Dr. McNeeley co-wrote the Adaptation chapter of the upcoming U.S. National Climate Assessment and led research on climate adaptation actions implemented across the globe through the Global Environmental Facility financing mechanisms for developing and Least Developed Countries. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the DOI-sponsored North Central Climate Science Center at Colorado State University. In addition to continuing research on vulnerability and adaptation in water resource management, this will also entail working to build the capacity of the NCCSC to conduct and support regional assessment on climate change adaptive capacity and decision making.

Dr. Nagorski's research includes trace metal dynamics in hydrological systems, trace metal records in ancient ice cores, streambed sediment geochemistry, and surface and ground water interactions and modeling.

Quantifying the relationship between climatic variation and the development of plant disease facilitates control of disease under field conditions. This research considers both past and possible future effects of long-term climatic variation on disease occurrence. Current research focuses on the biology of the Septoria diseases that are increasing in their importance as limiting factors to wheat production.

Research centers on the ecology and biogeochemistry of forest ecosystems, as well as grassland and riparian systems. We examine how factors such as natural and human disturbances, climate and climate change, succession, and soil fertility shape ecosystem biogeochemistry - and the reciprocal effect of biogeochemical cycles on these and other factors. We are particularly interested in how activities within ecosystems shape nutrient inputs, losses, and whole-system nutrient balances, and in linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Our studies occur primarily in Pacific Northwest forests, with a strong focus on cycles of carbon and major nutrients through soils, plants, water, and air.

Environmental-Economic Tradeoff Analysis, Climate Change and Carbon Sequestration, Natural Resources; Environmental Quality, Productivity Analysis and Production Theory, and Rural Health Care and Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Resource management, water resources, environmental law, teacher education

I am interested in the ecology of early life stages of marine species and the constraints imposed by the environment. I am particularly interested in the pervasive influence on temperature variation on all aspects of physiology and ecology of ectotherms. A current area of research is the role of temperature variation on growth dynamics and survival patterns of juvenile fishes, including the phenomenon of winter mortality among temperate and boreal fishes.

Climate change mitigation, bioenergy production, strategic planning and logistics, tactical decision support systems. My research interest is in developing innovative forest policies and practices to balance the production of traditional forest products with society's expanding need for ecosystem services, energy, and climate mitigation. My research falls in three broad categories: Strategic Land-use Planning and Forest Tenure Policy, Value Chain Optimization, and Energy and Climate Policy.

His research focuses on geomorphology and riparian vegetation as key drivers of riverine ecosystems. His current research interests include influences of valley and river channel morphology on salmon habitats and populations, using land use and restoration scenarios to estimate salmon population responses and evaluate restoration alternatives, and adapting river restoration plans and project designs for climate change.

Wildlife conservation and medicine with a focus on environmental and wildlife toxicology of marine and terrestrial mammals and fish, and marine mammals outside of Alaska.

Physical oceanography of Alaskan continental shelves and slopes, interdisciplinary marine research, and wind and buoyancy-forced shelf circulation systems.

My research specialty is "Climate Variability". This research aims to understand how one component of the climate system impacts another (e.g. ocean and atmosphere) and attempts to explain why something happens.