Distinguished Ecologist Seminars
We invite ecologists from around the world to speak each year. In the Fall, we highlight the work of a GDPE alum and a faculty member, and in the Spring we bring in outside speakers. We define “distinguished” broadly as someone who has contributed important work to the discipline of ecology. Below you will find information about our upcoming seminars.
All seminars in Fall 2024 will take place at 4:00pm in Biology Room 136. A post-seminar reception will be held at 5:00pm in the Biology 3rd Floor Atrium.
Fall 2024 Speakers
October 9th, 2024
The path from academic research to ‘operations’: the unfolding case of US greenhouse gas emissions
Kevin Gurney is an atmospheric scientist, ecologist and policy expert currently working in the areas of carbon cycle science, climate science, and climate science policy. He has worked in NGOs, think tanks, consulting, and academia and has focused on topics within global change and climate change. His recent work involves simulation of the global carbon cycle using the inverse approach, characterizing fossil fuel CO2 in North America (the “Vulcan” and “Hestia” projects), the linkages between terrestrial carbon exchange and climate variability, and deforestation and carbon/climate feedbacks. He also has worked extensively on climate policy and has been involved, for over 15 years, with the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Gurney is a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society, Sigma Xi honor society, the American Geophysical Union, the Ecological Society of America. Gurney is the recipient of the 2010 Sigma Xi “Young Investigator” Award and was one of the IPCC membership that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. Gurney was named “Air Conservationist of the Year,” by the Indiana Wildlife Federation in 2008 and is a recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award (2009).
Click here to view the GDPE Pathways to Science Q&A with Dr. Gurney
November 6th, 2024
From countryside to city centers: conserving birds where we live and work
Liba Pejchar is a professor and conservation biologist at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on 1) island conservation, and 2) biodiversity on working lands. She addresses topics ranging from the effects of species loss, recovery, and invasive species on biodiversity and ecosystem function, as well as how to sustain plant and animal communities in landscapes dominated by agricultural production, residential development, and energy extraction. Her current and former projects span Colorado, Wyoming, Hawaii, Samoa and New Zealand, and focus on birds, mammals, invertebrates and plants. Pejchar finds working across disciplines to seek innovative ways to integrate conservation biology, finance and policy very rewarding. She is also committed to advancing inclusion and justice in science and society. Through research, teaching and outreach, she pursues ways to overcome local and global environmental challenges at the intersection of biodiversity, equity, and human well-being.
Click here to view the GDPE Pathways to Science Q&A with Dr. Liba Pejchar
Spring 2025 Speakers
February 5th, 2025
Time, flexibility, and the importance of plant-pollinator interactions
Paul CaraDonna is a research scientist at the Denver Botanic Garden and an assistant professor at Northwestern University. His research investigates the interplay among species interactions, population dynamics, and community patterns. His lab uses the mutualistic interactions among plants and pollinators as a model system to ask fundamental ecological questions about the importance of species interactions and to understand the ecological consequences of global change (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, pollinator declines, urbanization). The CaraDonna Lab is also particularly interested in temporal ecology and the flexibility of species interactions. They address research questions using a variety of approaches including: observational field studies that leverage existing natural variation; field and laboratory experiments that build upon knowledge of this natural variation; analysis of long-term datasets and natural history collections; and quantitative tools like network analysis and simulation models.
March 26th, 2025
From leaf to biosphere: Plant functioning in a changing climate
Sean Michaletz is an assistant professor of Botany at the University of British Colombia. He is interested in the physical processes linking environmental variation to plant physiology, and how this “scales up” to influence higher-level patterns and processes. To investigate these topics, he and his lab use interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon fields such as physics, chemistry, engineering, and geoscience. Their work often involves development of mechanistic theory and models, which are parameterized, tested, and refined using data from the laboratory and the field. They also focus on long-term monitoring of climate, ecophysiology, and vegetation dynamics in our growing network of Forest MacroSystems network sites located around the world.
Timothy Bowles is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management. How can reliance on biodiversity and ecological processes create productive, resilient, and healthy agricultural systems? This question frames his overarching goal, which is to support transformation of our agricultural system from one reliant on intensive, synthetic inputs to one based on ecological processes. In particular, he is interested in how diversified, biologically-based farms affect soil health, resource-use-efficiency, and resilience to environmental change, especially drought. This research lies at the intersection of agroecology, soil ecology, and biogeochemistry with a focus on plant-soil-microbe interactions. He uses several approaches, including on-farm research across agricultural landscapes, historical data synthesis from long-term trials, and field and greenhouse experiments. Through collaboration with farmers, agronomists, conservation biologists, social scientists, and economists he aims for a multidimensional perspective on agroecological transformations.
For past speakers see our Previous Speakers page.