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Research scientist, NASA

In January 2014, I joined the faculty in the Department of Ecology at Montana State University.

Previously, I spent 2000-2005 at Duke University for my PhD, and then carried out post-doc positions at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (2006-2009), the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Snow, Forest and Landscape Research WSL (2009-2011), and the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l’Environnement (2011-2013).

My research addresses the role of vegetation dynamics on earth system processes, i.e., carbon and nutrient cycling and climate feedbacks. I work with an ensemble of ecosystem models known as dynamic global vegetation models, or DGVMs, to explore hypotheses related to climate, disturbance, and land-cover change impacts on vegetation. DGVM models provide a useful approach to combine information from forest inventory, flux towers, and remote sensing, with ecological theory, to test predictions at multiple timescales in the past, present, and future.

I am engaged in several multi-model syntheses exercises (MsTMIP, TRENDY, WETCHIMP, LBA) and have contributed to the recent Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I “Chapter 6: Carbon and other biogeochemical cycles”.

Fellowships

2011-2012 – Chinese National Science Foundation Young Foreign Scholars Fellowship
2009-2011 – EU Marie Curie FP7 Incoming International Fellowship
2006-2008 – EU Marie Curie FP6 Incoming International Fellowship (declined)
2002-2005 – NASA Earth System Science Graduate Fellowship
2002-2003 – FK Weyerhaeuser Forest History Society Fellowship
Activities

Global Carbon Project, Carbon Atlas, TRENDY
IPCC 5th Assessment Report

Experience

  • 2014–present
    Poulter Lab, Department of Ecology, Montana State University
  • 2011–2013
    Researcher, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l’Environnement
  • 2009–2011
    Researcher, Swiss Federal Research Institute for Snow, Forest and Landscape Research WSL
  • 2006–2009
    Post-doc researcher, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany

Education

  • 2005 
    Duke University, Durham NC, USA, PhD
  • 1997 
    University of Idaho, Moscow, USA, Bachelor of Science