Angela Allen

Angela Allen is a Ph.D. student in the Brown-MBL graduate program. She is co-advised by Osvaldo Sala and Bruce Peterson. Angela’s general research interests include aquatic productivity, stable isotope ecology, remote sensing, and ecosystem modeling.  Her research focuses on how climate-driven changes in the distribution of riparian shrubs impact the structure and functioning of arctic stream ecosystems. Prior to coming to Brown, Angela received a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and a M.S. in Oceanography from URI.

Joaquin Chaves

Joaquin Chaves is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Stephen Porder. He is working on a project examining the relationship between soil age, erosion rates, and soil fertility in tropical soils. The research takes a hard look at the common generalization that unglaciated tropical soils are old, and therefore low in phosphorous.  The project involves field sites in lowland forests of Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

Gillian Galford

Gillian Galford is a Ph.D. student in the Brown-MBL graduate program. Her thesis addresses the impacts of land-cover and land-use change on carbon and nitrogen cycling, particularly the emission of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide greenhouse gases, in the Brazilian Amazon.  She works with Brown Professor of Geological Sciences John Mustard and MBL Ecosystems Center Co-director Jerry Melillo. This collaboration represents a fusing of research expertise across the two institutions as Gillian integrates tools of remote sensing and biogeochemical modeling. This work is supported by a NASA Earth And Space Science Fellowship Program and through collaboration with colleagues at the University of Sao Paulo under the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA).

Shelby Hayhoe

Shelby Hayhoe is interested in the interaction of biogeochemical cycling, ecosystem functioning, and anthropogenic land use changes. For her undergraduate research in rural Iowa - an area that has seen some of the most rapid and complete land use change in the world - she looked at nutrient loading in stream and lake systems. She has also worked in Brazil, a region under immense development pressure, for Chris Neill of MBL, who was looking at nutrients and hydrologic flowpaths in small streams, comparing catchments in tropical forest and pasture.  Most recently, she conducted sampling of impaired waterbodies in Minnesota and working on hazardous material clean ups as a consultant. Her PhD advisor is Stephen Porder and her dissertation work will focus on the effects of forest and pasture conversion to intensive soybean agriculture in Brazil. 

Matt Heard

Matt Heard is a second year Ph.D. student in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology program. He is advised by Dr. Dov Sax, who shares a joint appointment in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies. Matt’s general research interests include understanding the ecological and evolutionary consequences of land use change and species invasions. His research focuses specifically on how agricultural expansion, increasing urbanization, and a rise in exotic species can impact native biodiversity and ecosystems. Prior to coming to Brown, Matt received a B.A. in Ecology and French from the honors program at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Lindsay McAlpine

Lindsay McAlpine is an undergraduate concentrator in Environmental Science with a focus in Ecosystems and Design. Her senior thesis research with Stephen Porder looks at the impact of garlic mustard, an invasive species, and the efforts to control its spread in the Berkshire Hills region. She is examining the effectiveness and economic efficiency of the Nature Conservancy's efforts to control garlic mustard using herbicides.

Lara Reichmann

Lara Reichmann works on an experiment located in the Chihuahuan Desert, as part of the Jornada Basin Long term Ecological Research Site (LTER). By independently manipulating precipitation and nitrogen inputs, researchers are able to tease out controls on patterns of plant productivity. Lara works with Osvaldo Sala at Brown University and Debra Peters at New Mexico State University.

Lucia Vivanco

Working with Osvaldo Sala at Brown and Amy Austin at the University of Buenos Aires, Lucia focuses on terrestrial ecosystem ecology. She has several experiments in the Patagonian forest of Argentina where she examines the effects of plant diversity on carbon and nutrient cycling. A second area of research is the relative importance of biotic and abiotic controls on litter decomposition in the Patagonian steppe.

Recent Graduates

Pedro Flombaum

B.S. Biology, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1997
Working in Osvaldo Sala's research group, Pedro Flombaum studies the effects of plant species diversity on ecosystem functioning. Using manipulative experiments in the Patagonian steppe, he found that primary production was positively associated with the diversity of plant species. In fact, the biodiversity effect in this natural ecosystem was much larger than previously reported for artificial ecosystems. His research suggests that the loss of natural biodiversity may have larger consequences for ecosystem functioning than previously thought.