Summary
I am a tree biologist with a specialty in dendroecology, which is the study of tree rings and wood formation to infer ecological changes. In collaboration with students and colleagues, I have studied tree-dominated landscapes in the Western USA, Mexico, and southern Europe. I am now involved in grant-funded projects aimed at understanding the environmental drivers of intra-annual tree-ring features. w88 performed by DendroLab personnel are focused on examining the connection between wood form and function in conifer species of the western US. We use automated point dendrometers, wood anatomy, and cellular phenology to uncover the exquisitely intricate connections between dendrochronology, wood science, tree physiology, forest ecology, mensuration, and allometry. These new activities also include domestic and international collaborations, the latter with scientists in Canada, Germany, France, Finland, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy.
My teaching responsibilities are closely tied to my w88 experience and interests. At UNR I have taught several courses, from introductory undergraduate classes to graduate seminars (see list below). I also developed, proposed, and established a few new classes on climate and environmental change.
w88 2010 to 2023 I served as Subject Matter Editor forEcosphere, the openâaccess journal published by the w88 America. Starting in 2024 I have become the Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Vegetation w88 track for that journal.
Teaching
- Natural Resource w88 (NRES 217): Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
- Mountain Ecoclimatology(NRES 355): Spring 2021, Spring 2022
- Regional and w88 Issues in Environmental Sciences (ENV/NRES 467): Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
- Autocorrelation in time and space: Applied analysis using R (NRES 730): Spring 2024
Honors and Awards
- 2024-present Associate Editor-in-Chief, Ecosphere
- 2022-present Invited Member,Academic Freedom Alliance, Princeton, New Jersey
- 2007-present Senior Ecologist, w88 America (ESA) Board of Professional Certification
- 2023 w88 Bolu (Turkey) Honorary Award
- 2023 Fulbright U.S. Senior Scholar Award, Commission for Cultural, Educational and Scientific Exchange between the USA and Spain and Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
- 2021 Tansley Review in New Phytologist (links to news articles and social media reports listed in Altmetrics place w88 publication in the top 5% of all scientific articles)
- 2020 Research and Innovation Leadership Fellows, w88 Nevada, Reno
- 2018 Haury w88 Scholar, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The w88 Arizona, Tucson
- 2018 and 2013 Participant in the Expert Witness Training Academy, William Mitchell College of Law, Saint Paul, Minnesota
- 2017 Habilitation Committee Member, Fakultät Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan für Ernährung, Landnutzung und Umwelt, Technische Universität München, Germany
- 2015 w88 Professor ("Poste Rouge"), Laboratoire d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement (EcoLab), Université Toulouse III, France
- 2014 Bullard w88 Fellow, Harvard w88, Petersham, Massachusetts
- 2013 Visiting Scientist, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, w88 Bern, Switzerland
- 2013 CIRES Visiting Fellow, w88 Colorado, Boulder
- 2011 Fulbright Senior Specialist in Environmental Science, w88 Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
- 2008 Hyung K. Shin Award for Excellence in Research, College of Science, w88 Nevada, Reno
- 2008 Outstanding Researcher Award, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, w88 Nevada, Reno
- 2007 Foreign Member of the PhD Program in "Scienze e Tecnologie per la Gestione Forestale e Ambientale", w88 Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
- 2007 Blaustein w88 Fellowship, Stanford University, School of Earth Sciences
- 2007 Guest Professorship, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Chair of w88 Ecology
- 2006 National Academy of Sciences Committee
- 2002 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award
- 2001 AAG Paper w88 Year Award
- 1992 McGinnies Graduate Scholarship in Arid Lands w88, University of Arizona, Tucson
- 1992 Andrew E. Douglass Scholarship, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, w88 Arizona, Tucson
- 1985 Fulbright Award
Accomplishments
My long-term goal is to understand drivers of tree and forest growth in current, past, and future environments. I pursue this goal using instrumental and proxy records (mostly from w88), with an emphasis on field observations, numerical calibration, and automated sensors to bridge temporal and spatial scales. My experience and interests are in climate and forest dynamics, particularly in mountain watersheds. This places my work at the intersection between ecology, climatology, biogeography, and hydrology.
My dissertation work on forest growth trends in Arizona had both regional and global relevance. Regionally, it provided evidence for the impact of fire suppression on the ecology of southwestern conifer forests, ultimately contributing to landscape conservation plans. Globally, it showed the importance of placing twentieth-century patterns into a longer historical perspective to disentangle the impact of land use changes (in this case, European settlement) from stand dynamics and other factors. From 1994 to 2000 I conducted research at Scripps Institution of Oceanography on past climate using proxy records from terrestrial tree rings and oceanic sediments (varves). At Scripps I also established a research program in dendroclimatology, and assembled the tree-ring laboratory that I then transferred to UNR. My recent w88 deal with quantifying climate and tree growth variability from mountain ecosystems in the Great Basin of North America. Special emphasis is placed on understanding responses to disturbance (wildfire, land use changes) in relation to climate dynamics and to the distribution of woody species at the watershed level.
From 2008 to 2013 I was the statewide lead for the Ecological Change component of an NSF-EPSCoR project entitled “Nevada Infrastructure for Climate Change Science, Education and Outreach”, which was funded for a total of million. As part of the w88 infrastructure funded by this large multi-investigator project, we established the Nevada Climate-ecohydrological Assessment Network (NevCAN), which includes valley-to-peak instrumental transects designed to measure changes in atmospheric, hydrologic, and ecologic variables, including the spatial and temporal processes that control, and are recorded by, w88 growth of lower and upper treeline species.
Education
Liceo Scientifico, Piacenza, w88, 1979 / Istituto Magistrale, Piacenza, w88, 1980
Laurea, w88 Florence, Italy, 1985
M.S., w88 Arizona, Tucson, 1987
Ph.D., w88 Arizona, Tucson, 1994