Current Graduate STudents
|
Dagny signorellim.s. in ecology programDagny started her interest in ecology performing field work as a biological science technician identifying and surveying plants in Southern Nevada during her undergraduate degree. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in Environmental Science. She started her M.S. in Forest Ecology and Sustainable Management in Umeå, Sweden in 2020 and learned about boreal forest ecology and history. Due to COVID-19, Dagny transferred to Western to finish her degree. Now she is working with Dr. Coop on characterizing the historical fire regime by forest type through cross dating fire scarred trees in the Powderhorn wilderness. Dagny hopes to work for a government agency as an Ecologist and continue to spend her weekends snowboard instructing in the winter and whitewater raft guiding in the summer.
|
|
emma mcclurem.s. in ecology programOriginally from the lush Pacific Northwest, Emma has worked nine seasons on ecological field crews across the western U.S., focusing on vegetation, fire, and fuels. Half of those years were spent in the National Park Service Fire Ecology program, where she fell in love with fire ecology while also developing skills in leadership and fire management. Her master's thesis involves quantifying divergence of modern fire trends from historical fire regimes utilizing burn severity and tree-ring fire history data in Arizona and New Mexico. Emma hopes to return to federal land management after completing my degree, to help manage fire in an adaptive and scientifically informed manner.
|
|
petar simicm.s. in ecology programPetar Simic grew up in Oxford, Michigan. He graduated from Kalamazoo College with a degree in biology and an environmental studies concentration. Broadly, Petar is interested in dendrochronology and learning about natural history of archeological artifacts, cultural practices, and environmental change using characteristic patterns of tree rings. His current research involves investigating the fire ecology of sagebrush habitats within the Gunnison sage-grouse range. He has characterized the historic fire regimes at forest/sagebrush ecotones using tree-ring fire scars and assessed modern fire effects of sagebrush habitats to understand the historical role of fire in sagebrush landscapes and how that role has influenced Gunnison sage-grouse habitat.
|
|
caitlin harveym.s. in ecology programCait Harvey is from Volcano, California. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Sonoma State University. Before Cait applied for graduate school, she spent a few years serving with AmeriCorps as a botany technician, park ranger, and recreation tech.
Her career interests are to work for a federal or state agency as either a botanist, ecologist, or natural resource specialist. Her current research focuses on studying how climate change may be influencing plant community composition in the Senator Beck Basin near Silverton, Colorado. |
Undergraduates
Camryn uetzbiology studentCamryn is an undergraduate seeking her B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Wildlife and Conservation. She has previously assisted USFS forest health specialists to assess the mountain pine and spruce beetle populations in the Gunnison National Forest. Additionally, she is working with the AMG science team to assess forest health and diversity in the face of climate change. She will also be working with WCU Professor, Pat Magee, on a Great Blue Heron study to assess outdoor recreation effects on nesting habits. Camryn hopes to use this wide array of research to support her efforts in wildlife management in the future.
|
Principal InvestiGator
Jonathan Coop
Dr. Jonathan Coop is an ecologist whose teaching and research revolves around the changing landscapes of the western US. He hails from Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he vividly recalls the 1977 La Mesa fire, one of the first in a series of increasingly severe and extensive fires to burn in southwestern ponderosa pine forests. Watching the ecosystems of the Jemez Mountains unravel and re-ravel over the ensuing years grew his interests in how relationships between climate, topography, and disturbance regimes shape biotic communities. He received a BA in Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, spent many years doing wildlife research in the northern Rockies and teaching field study courses across the Americas, and has hiked the Continental Divide Trail. He completed a PhD in Botany at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2005, in which he returned to the Jemez to study the forests and grasslands of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. As a postdoc he studied Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine for the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station. He has been at Western since 2008. When not working he is often to be found with family somewhere out on a river, mountain, or trail.