People

SPA Lab Dream Team (Winter 2022) Top left to bottom right: Schyler Reis, Braden Hensley, Emily Huckstead, Hilary Rose Dawson, Julia Odenthal, Adriana Uscanga, Sophia Shuler, Brooke Hunter, Alison Deak, Sydney Katz, Emily Scherer, Delaney Kleiner, Jamie Wright, and Lucas Silva. Missing a few core members (Ori Chafe, Adrian Broz, Noah Savage). 

Lucas Silva – Principal Investigator – silva-cv-mar-2022

Current Lab Members Emily Huckstead. Laboratory Manager. Interested in ecological relationships and their applications to management practices that promote sustainability.     Adriana Uscanga. PhD candidate specializing in landscape ecology with focus on human-environment interactions and sustainability of agroecosystems.    Schyler Reis. PhD candidate investigating the effects of disturbance and climate on vegetation shifts across drylands of the Pacific Northwest.   Jamie Wright. PhD candidate investigating climatic and biogeochemical processes that influence the stability of forest-savanna boundaries.   Ori Chafe. PhD students NSF Graduate Research Fellow studying interactions of climate and fire disturbance with in the Pacific Northwest.   Hilary Rose Dawson. PhD student interested in plant-environment interactions under disturbances like drought and wildfire. Website    Adrian Broz. PhD Candidate. Investigating the factors that control organic matter preservation in ancient soils of Earth and Mars.   . Brooke Hunter. Phd Candidate. Honorary SPA Lab member Advised by Josh Roering. Interested in wildfire effects on hillslope erosion and how geomorphic processes influence soil properties and carbon storage.   Alison Deak. MS student interested in fire ecology and studying the degradation and subsequent recovery of forest landscapes to inform land management decisions.     Sydney Katz. MS student. Interested in forestry practices and studying the differences in soil characteristics between managed and old-growth forests.   Delaney Kleiner. Honors College student. Research Assistant (NSF-funded ESPRIT fellow). Interested in climate change, conservation, and sustainability with an ecological emphasis.    Julia Odenthal. Undergraduate research assistant working on field experiments for the selection of microbial communities for enhanced carbon sequestration functions.   Braden Hensley. Undergraduate research assistant working on soil response to fire disturbance and pyrogenic carbon stabilization.   Emily Scherer. Undergraduate research assistant studying plant communities and their fungal networks.   Sophia Shuler. Undergraduate research assistant using data science tools to map forest carbon stocks.   Noah Savage. Honors College Student interested in the potential sustainability of controlled-environment agriculture and hydroponics.       Previous Lab Members Dr. Barbara Bomfim. Former PhD candidate and Postdoctoral Fellow studying interactions between land-use change and biogeochemical cycles in tropical systems.Now research scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Dr. Toby Maxwell. Former PhD candidate and Postdoctoral Fellow studying climate-induced alterations of carbon and water cycles in montane forests. Now research scientist at USGS Idaho. Dr. Paulo Quadri. Former PhD candidate now postdoctoral fellow working with SPA Lab members and UCSC Zavaleta‘s lab to assess the impacts of rising CO2 and climate on alpine forests and how topography modulates these impacts.   Mike Farinacci. MS student interested in the influence of climate and disturbance on forest ecohydrology in the Pacific Northwest.   Jerod Aguilar. Former NSF – GRFP fellow interested in the origins of life and search for extraterrestrial life. Now PhD student examining how volcanic burial affects the preservation of organic carbon in ancient soils.   Bryce Izlar. Research Assistant. Interested in habitat fragmentation to apply and integrate SPA interactions into current ecological restoration science.   Lenora Davis. Research Assistant (NSF-funded ESPRIT fellow). Interested in incorporating climate change and local ecological research into environmental science curriculum as a high school teacher.   Weicheng Wang. MS student interested in GIS and its applications in biogeography and ecology.   Alexia Gee (SPUR student) now graduate student at Washington State University.   Aaron LeFore (Honors College student) technician at PBS Environmental Engineering INC Tara Seely (MS student) now PhD candidate and UC Berkeley Laura Emberson (MS student) now research analyst at NRCS Braden Prillwitz (Honors College student) Hunter Mackin (Research Assistant Env Sci Major) Elizabeth Baach (Research Assistant Env Sci Major)

Pre-Covid SPA Lab Team (Fall 2019) missing a few members due to filed work. Left to right: Mike Farinacci, Toby Maxwell, Weicheng Wang, Bryce Izlar, Jamie Wright, Adriana Uscanga, Hilary Dawson, Barbara Bomfim, Ori Chafe, Sydney Katz, Alison Deak, and Lucas Silva.

 

Recent Adventures:   Carbon and nutrient stock quantification at HJ Andrews Soil Science crew at Jory site in central Oregon Experimental Analysis of Plant-Microbe “Communication” SPA “lab meeting” American river   Tree ring sampling in Tibet

NSF Co-PI Corinne Wong sampling speleothems in Brazil