People

Current lab members (ordered by length of time in the lab)

Mary L. Cadenasso, PI

Mary is a native of Oakland, California, and after completing a biology degree at the University of Santa Clara, she worked as a botanist with an environmental consulting firm in the Bay Area before returning to graduate school at Rutgers University and earning Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution in 1998. She was a post-doc at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook NY and a founding member and co-PI of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, LTER. She spent 2 years as a visiting scholar at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University before joining the UC Davis faculty in 2006. The primary thread that weaves through all of Mary's research is a concern with linking landscape pattern to ecosystem function and understanding how human activities alter that link. Her research spans systems and scales and she works in the oak savanna and high alpine of California and the metropolitan regions of Sacramento and Baltimore. Click here for Mary's CV.
Email: MLCadenasso@ucdavis.edu

Alex Webster, Ph.D. candidate

Alex is a broadly trained ecologist who likes to study plant-soil-water interactions in human-impacted ecosystems and landscapes. Her dissertation work has focused on the structure and biogeochemical function of semi-natural waterway networks and their riparian zones in the Central Valley of California. Alex first joined the lab as lab manager and spent time in South Africa working on nutrient cycling in riparian forests of Kruger National Park before joining the Ecology Graduate Group to pursue her PhD. She likes asking questions like: what makes a stream function not like a pipe? how do we understand riparian ecosystems across diverse hydrogeologic and land use settings? and, how do we introduce ecosystem function back into highly modified landscapes?
Email: AJWebster@ucdavis.edu

Joanna Solins, Ph.D. candidate

Joanna is interested in understanding how geographic context influences the effects of urbanization on ecosystem properties and processes. Her graduate research focuses on riparian plant communities and soils in the understudied Mediterranean climate of Sacramento, California, and she brings an interdisciplinary background to this work. After earning her BA in environmental studies from Vassar College and studying stream nutrient pollution in Australia, Joanna worked in educational publishing and non-profit outreach and communications before joining the CLUE lab in 2012. She earned an MA in geography in 2016, and is continuing with her PhD in ecology. Joanna hopes her research will inform restoration and management efforts on urban streams, and she serves on the board of a local watershed organization.
Email: JSolins@ucdavis.edu

Bryn Montgomery, GIS Analyst
Bryn is a GIS professional and environmental scientist whose research interests include the spatial dynamics of urban ecosystems and the impacts of human decision-making on urban systems. After earning his BSc. degree in Environmental Science at the University of San Francisco in 2013, Bryn moved to Canada where he completed a MSc. degree in Geography at Simon Fraser University in 2015. His research focused on spatially modeling and analyzing the impacts of human decision-making models on agricultural and urban land development along an urban-rural fringe in Colorado. Bryn joined the CLUE lab in early 2016 to support the GIS and remote sensing components of several research projects.

Jasmin Green, M.S. Student

Jasmin grew up in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, stirring her curiosity from a young age about how individual actions can have large-scale impacts on the environment. She attained her BS in Biology and Environmental Science at The College of William and Mary in 2015, where she conducted research on the viral ecology of freshwater ecosystems, focusing particularly on the effects of storm water runoff in suburban neighborhoods. Her interest in the influence of human structures on the natural landscape led her to join the CLUE lab in 2017, where she is pursuing her MS in the Graduate Group of Ecology.
Email: JAGre@ucdavis.edu

Former lab members -- Graduate students

Elise Tulloss, Ph.D.
Dr. Elise Tulloss completed her Ph.D. in the CLUE lab in 2013. Her dissertation is entitled: "The effects of nitrogen deposition on plant community dynamics in a heterogeneous savanna landscape." Elise is currently on faculty at La Salle High School of Yakima, Washington.

James McConaghie, Ph.D.
Dr. James McConaghie completed his Ph.D. in the CLUE lab in 2014. His dissertation is entitled: "The influence of spatial heterogeneity, hydrologic variability, and scale on nitrogen and water export in urban residential ecosystems." James is currently the Natural Resource Specialist in the Division of Water Quality Standards and Assessments at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Lilly Hayden, M.S.

Lilly Hayden completed her M.S. degree in the CLUE lab in 2014. Her thesis is entitled: " Best management practices for reducing residential landscape runoff and non-point source pollution: An investigation of the effects of outreach education and aesthetic preferences on homeowner behavior." Lilly is currently and Environmental Scientist at the California Department of Water Resources.

Dustin Herrmann, Ph.D.

Dr. Dustin Herrmann completed his Ph.D. in the CLUE lab in 2014. His dissertation is entitled: "Nitrogen retention and loss in urban lawns." Dustin is currently an ORISE participant at the Environmental Protection Agency based in Cincinnati, OH.

Former lab members -- Post-Docs

Weiqi Zhou, Ph.D.

While in the CLUE lab Dr. Weiqi Zhou's research focused on remote sensing and urban land cover working to improve and automate the HERCULES land cover model. Weiqi also investigated the spatial distribution of urban heat. He is currently a Research Professor in the State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

Ganlin Huang, Ph.D.

Dr. Ganlin Huang wore several different hats during her Post-Doc at UC Davis -- one of which was with the CLUE lab where her research efforts focused on the distribution of land surface temperatures and human populations in cities. She is currently a professor at Beijing Normal University.

Kirsten Schwarz, Ph.D.

While in the CLUE lab Dr. Kirsten Schwarz's research focused on urban ecosystem services and environmental justice. She compared urban tree canopy distribution relative to socioeconomic factors in 7 cities. She also helped to initiate, and continued to be a collaborator on, the SLUG project. Dr. Schwarz is an associate professor at Northern Kentucky University.

Former lab members -- Technicians

Abri de Buys

After collaborating with Mary and colleagues on a project in Kruger National Park, South Africa, Abri join the CLUE lab. He contributed his ideas and talents to the continuation of the research in Kruger Park and was also instrumental in establishing the lab and helping graduate students get their field research started. Abri returned to South Africa and joined the Fynbos node of SAEON (South African Environmental Observation Network) as a Technical Officer

Jill Baty, Research technician

While in the CLUE lab, Jill worked primarily on the SLUG project

Cindy Engel, GIS technician

While in the CLUE lab, Cindy worked on HERCULES and the SLUG project. Cindy is currently the GIS coordinator at the Amador County Transportation Commission

Heather Smith
Heather was responsible for the SLUG project while in the CLUE lab. She also contributed to several other projects. She is currently the Grand Traverse Baykeeper for the Watershed Center, Michigan.