Sabbatical Fellows
Bill Fagan | Kerry Woods
Center Associates
John Alroy | Juliann Aukema | Nancy Baron | Ben Halpern | Kim Selkoe
| Sabbatical Fellows | |
Bill Fagan (805) 892-2532 | As an NCEAS Sabbatical Fellow, I will explore the implications of dendritic (branching) geometries (such as those found in river networks and elsewhere in nature) for ecological complexity. My efforts will focus on building theoretical models and analyzing datasets on river fishes. |
Kerry Woods | Understanding of community structure and dynamics in late-successional forest lags that for early successional communities because requisite data-sets are rare and not well-designed for testing current hypotheses about diversity structure and regulation, or community dynamics and assembly. I work with multi-decade permanent-plot data from old-growth temperate forests to explore questions about community assembly and predictability and about the structure of diversity in space and time, in both understory and canopy communities. |
| Center Associates | |
 | I study large-scale ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes in the fossil record. My research mostly focuses on North American fossil mammals and Phanerozoic marine invertebrates, connecting regional and local diversity, taxonomic composition, body mass distributions, ecomorphology, and hylogenetic patterns to intrinsic diversity dynamics, evolutionary trends, mass extinctions, and the effects of global climate change. Additional projects involve time scale theory, methods of sampling standardization, and simulation analyses. I also coordinate the NSF-funded, NCEAS-based Paleobiology Database project, which has brought together scores of workers in an effort to document the global marine and terrestrial macrofossil record of plants and animals. |
My research interests lie in spatial patterns, processes, and mechanisms underlying species interactions and distributions, and in applied conservation. I draw on the fields of spatial ecology, plant community ecology, plant-animal interactons, conservation biology, and epidemiology; and I strive to bridge the gap between science and conservation practice. At NCEAS, I am working on a project to quantify the economic and ecosystem impacts of non-native forest pests and pathogens in North America. Both the economic and ecosystem efects of these introductions ahould be considered in developing public policy. | |
| Nancy Baron, a zoologist and science writer, is the Science Outreach Director for SeaWeb/COMPASS. She is also the lead communications trainer for the Aldo Leopold Leadership program and helps scientists translate their work to journalists, the public and policymakers. She and her Washington DC based team keep their fingers on the pulse of important marine conservation research. When new “tipping point” science is published, they coach scientists to talk about it in ways that are readily understood and get the story out to the media. Nancy also leads communications training workshops to help bridge the worlds of scientists and journalists. |
| I received my Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology from UC Santa Barbara in 2003 and was then a TNC David H. Smith Postdoctoral Fellow jointly sponsored at NCEAS and UC Santa Cruz. As Project Coordinator for the Ecosystem-based Management Program, I help coordinate and guide the working group and post-doctoral research funded through this project, participate in these efforts when appropriate, and work to help translate products from these efforts into real-world management and policy changes. My own research focuses on evaluating population and ecosystem level ecological processes of coastal marine species and systems, developing and evaluating the science and methods for managing and conserving marine resources (particularly marine protected areas and EBM), and determining factors that control food web structure and dynamics. |
| I am a molecular ecologist who uses genetic tools to investigate marine dispersal. My research, funded by the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, applies these interests to the coral reefs of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. I will determine the genetic structures of various reef species and use modeling to estimate the likely source-sink dynamics throughout the archipelago. I am also leading a collaborative project using microsatellite markers to determine the degree of larval dispersal of nearshore fishery species across the US/Mexico border. |
Juliann Aukema
