Research Group Members
Faculty
Steve Hamburg is an ecosystem ecologist interested in the effects of disturbances on forest structure and function. He specializes in the role of anthropogenic disturbances, particularly land-use and air pollution/climate change, on the northern hardwood forests of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. In addition he has ongoing projects in the forests of Taiwan and New England. He has been involved in effects to define the effects of land-use change, in particular reforestation, on carbon sequestration. This work involves both quantifying carbon stock changes and their policy implications.
Contact Steve at:
steven_hamburg@brown.edu
(401) 863-1261Jack Mustard researches the processes of environmental through the study of surface properties and surface processes using remotely sensed data. His focus is on understanding the natural and socio-economic forces driving land use and land cover change and the impacts of these changes on ecosystem goods and services. He is also engaged in the exploration of Mars, but that is another story.
Contact Jack at:
john_mustard@brown.edu
(401) 863-2417Stephen Porder conducts his research at the intersection between ecology, geology, and biogeochemistry, and focuses primarily on understanding differences in nutrient cycling across tropical landscapes. In his work, he attempts to identify biogeochemical patterns across landscapes, to understand how these patterns may affect the function and services of ecosystems, and to consider how to incorporate this variation into models for predicting the response of ecosystems to anthropogenic changes.
Contact Stepehn at:
sporder@brown.edu
(401) 863-6356
StaffLynn Carlson came to Brown in October of 1998 to manage the new Environmental and Remote Technologies Lab in MacMillan Hall. Prior to taking this position, she served the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for ten years, first as staff in the Nonpoint Source Pollution Management Program, and for the last six years, as the Department's GIS Coordinator. Lynn has served on the Executive Board of the Northeast Arc User's Group, and also as the Chairman of the Rhode Island Geographic Information System Executive Committee. Her goals here at Brown are to integrate the use of GIS technology throughout the campus, and provide students, faculty, and staff with assistance in utilizing the technology in their courses and research. Lynn holds an undergraduate degree in Biology from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon; her graduate degree is in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island.
Matt Vadeboncoeur is a Research Assistant in the Hamburg Lab, working on land use history project in Grafton County, NH. He graduated with an Sc.B. from the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown University in May 2003, and his thesis involved using aerial photography to map land use changes on Block Island, RI over the past 70 years.
Graduate StudentsAngela Allen is a graduate student in the joint graduate program with the Marine Biological Lab (MBL). She is co-advised by Osvaldo Sala and Bruce Peterson ( Ecosystems Center, MBL). Angela's general research interests include aquatic productivity, stable isotope biogeochemistry, and ecosystem modeling. Her research focuses on how the structure, function, and nutrient cycling of arctic stream ecosystems may be affected by climate change. 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. She can be reached at Angela_Allen@brown.edu
Keryn Bromberg is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Mark Bertness' community ecology lab. For her dissertation research, she is studying how New England salt marshes have been affected by mosquito ditching and climate change. She is broadly interested in historical ecology and the way in which human-influenced habitats provide ecosystem services to humans and wildlife. Keryn recieved her undergraduate degree from Tufts University in 2002 and then spent a year doing research on plant-insect interactions with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama before coming to Brown. She can be reached at Keryn_Bromberg@brown.edu
Gillian Galford is a graduate student in the joint graduate program with the Marine Biological Lab (MBL). She shares her time and research with her advisors Jack Mustard and Jerry Melillo (Ecosystems Center, MBL). Gillian got interested in environmental sustainability and applications of remote sensing through her undergraduate experiences in the Pathfinder Program in Environmental Sustainability (Washington University). After completing a Martian analog study in the Ka'u Desert of Hawaii, she came to Brown to study biogeochemical impacts of land use change through remote sensing and ecosystems modeling. Gillian is focusing on the impacts of agricultural intensification in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. She can be reached at Gillian_Galford@brown.edu
Jessica Hunter is a graduate student at the Center for Environmental Studies. Her broad research interests include nutrient pollution, habitat restoration and watershed protection. Jess' research will focus on urban land-use and the effectiveness of urban green space at protecting ecosystem services. Previous to coming to Brown, Jess worked for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Watershed Management, and the Maine Natural Areas Program. She holds a Bsc in Biology and Environmental Science from McGill University ('03) in Montreal and can be reached at Jessica_Hunter@brown.edu.
Celia Riechel is a graduate student at the Center for Environmental Studies. Her interests include working forest conservation, forms of land ownership and management, exurbanization, and sustainability. Her research will focus on demographic trends in conservation and development at the parcel level on private forest lands near long-term ecological research sites in New Hampshire and Oregon. Before coming to Brown, Celia worked for the Forest Service, National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy. Celia_Riechel@brown.edu
Seeta Sistla is a second year PhD student in a joint program between Brown University, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (Providence, RI) and the Marine Biological Laboratories, Ecosystems Center (Woods Hole, MA). Currently, she is based at Brown in the Sala lab, and is broadly interested in terrestrial ecosystem ecology with a particular focus on the potential effects of climate change on vegetative and soil systems. Her dissertation research focuses on the ecophysiological and biogeochemical responses to artifically-induced chronic soil warming as part of a group led by Dr. Jerry Melillo of the MBL. This project is based at the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site.
Ninian Stein is a fifth year graduate student in anthropology/archaeology, Ninian focuses on issues of environment and landscape in New England. Her dissertation is on subsistence and landscape in Late Woodland and Early Contact Period Southern New England, circa 1000-1500 AD. She has ongoing research projects at Yale-Myers Forest in Northeastern CT, and in coastal Rhode Island. Ninian holds masters degrees from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in environmental science and Harvard in archaeology. Her Brown University joint-department undergraduate honors thesis, on the industrial archaeology and environmental history of a textile mill in Pawtucket RI, was influential in the building being saved from destruction and transformed into an artists community called Riverfront Lofts. She can be reached at Ninian_Stein@brown.edu
Will Yandik is a graduate student at the Center for Environmental Studies. He is currently interested in how natural disturbance, land use, and climate change affect forest succession, landscape patchiness, and biodiversity in northern hardwood forests. He will be examining how the influences of past land use and climate change affect the distribution of breeding birds in mosaic landscapes in central New Hampshire. Will is a regional journal editor for the New York State Ornithological Association and an active member of several northeastern land trusts. He can be reached at William_Yandik@brown.edu
AlumniJeff Albert
AAAS Fellow and Visiting Scholar, Watson InstituteKemen Austin graduated in 2006 with an Sc.B. in Environmental Science. She worked with Steve Hamburg on land use history and land use change in the forests of New Hampshire for her senior thesis. She is interested in the relationship between land use history and carbon storage in northeastern forests. She is also a proud member of both the Brown bird watching club and the Brown Capoeria club.
Bethany Bradley graduated in 2005 with a Ph.D. from the Department of Geologial Sciences. She is currently a Research Associate at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. She has been involved with remote sensing since completing a senior thesis on a martian geologic formation at Pomona College (’00), after which she worked at Goddard Space Flight Center on continued Mars research. At Brown, she was happy to return to environmental remote sensing, studying how land cover is affected by human action and understanding how change occurs over time. Her primary focus has been on the presence and spread ofthe invasive species cheatgrass through the Great Basin desert.
Stephanie Elson received a Masters degree in 2006 after working with Steven Hamburg on exurban development and corresponding land cover change in New Hampshire 's White Mountains. She completed her undergraduate degree in Wesleyan University 's Science in Society program, and has been working to merge ecological principles with human communities ever since. In between her studies at Wesleyan and Brown, Stephanie lived in Brooklyn and worked in New York City 's urban parks movement.
Jeremy Fisher graduated in 2005 with a Ph.D. from the Department of Geologial Sciences. His dissertation research involved remote sensing research at the local scale (thermal changes in Narragansett Bay) and the international level (land use practices in Burkina Faso). He received joint degrees in Geology and Geography from the University of Maryland in College Park, and a Masters degree in Geology at BrownUniversity.
Chris Fuller graduated in 2006 with an Sc.B. in Environmental Science. His return to academia was preceded by a 15-year career in the design and engineering of retail environments. He also has experience in site planning and the built environment. While attending Brown, he served two years as treasurer for the Returning Undergraduate Student Association and spent the summer of 2005 researching a local groundwater contamination concern that affected residential drinking water wells and the Kickemuit River . His thesis project with Steve Hamburg involved a revistation of the carbon and nitrogen dynamics in abandoned pre-industrial agricultural soils.
Jennifer Henman
Jenny Henman graduated with a M.A. from Bronw's Center for Environmental Studies in 2004. Her undergraduate background is in Geography at Durham University,UK. Jenny and Steve Hamburg have worked on the Carbon implications of Agroforestry programs in Peru, in collaboration with Luis Campos Baca from Peru, Watson Scholar of the Environment 2003 and director of Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon (IIAP). Additionally Jenny has worked under the guidance of Gisela Ulloa Vargas from Bolivia, Watson Scholar of the Environment 2004.Daniel Orenstein received a Ph.D. from Brown University's Center for Environmental Studies in 2006, and is currently a Visiting Professor with at the Watson Institute for International Studies. His research interests include population and environment interactions, land use/land cover change science, and environmental issues in Israel. He completed his B.Sc. in Environmental Biology and Management at the University of California, Davis (1992), and his M.Sc. in Ecology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel (1997). He is also a researcher with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Israel, and a co-coordinator of the Middle East Environmental Futures Project at Brown's Watson Institute for International Studies.
Jasper Oshun is currently a research assistant to Jack Mustard and Steve Hamburg. His current research aims to quantify the destruction of the natural environment in southern Louisiana and Mississippi as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Jasper graduated in December 2005 with a double concentration in geology-biology and international relations. Last fall, he completed an independent research project with Bethany Bradley and Jack Mustard on phenological patterns in sagebrush in central Idaho. Jasper will continue to use remote sensing to analyze changing land ecosystems in the summer of 2006 at the USGS in Reston, Virginia. His study will analyze the health of the Potomac River Watershed.
Noam Ross recieved his Sc.B. from Brown University in 2006. Noam is interested in ecosystem feedbacks to climate change and how land-use and other interventions affect these feedbacks. He is also interested in the interface between technological and natural systems and the design of artificial ecosystems. His senior thesis examined the response of ecosystems with permafrost in Northern Mongolia to livestock grazing.
Laura C. Schneider was a Post Doctoral Research Associate for the Environmental Change Initiative in 2004. She received her Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University. Her specific interests are in land use-cover change monitoring and modeling, biophysical remote sensing, GIS and ecological dynamics of plant invasives. Laura is now on the Department of Geography faculty at Rutgers University.
Eric Von Wettberg received a Ph.D. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2006, and is interested in how plants respond to variable environments. His dissertation work, with Johanna Schmitt, focuses on mechanisms and landscape patterns of local adaptatation in plastic shade avoidance responses in Impatiens capensis, the orange spotted jewelweed. Eric is also interested in the population biology of rare sandplain grassland herbs such as Liatris scariosa and Aster concolor. Prior to coming to Brown, Eric studied the effects of crop spatial arrangement on weed suppression as a Fulbright scholar in Denmark.
Adam Wienert received a M.A. from Brown's Center for Environmental Studies in 2006, and wrote his master's thesis on the consequences of exurban development in northern New England for carbon storage. Before entering the program, he worked as a recycling professional in California after graduating from Middlebury College with a degree in Geography. When he leaves Brown, he hopes to further develop and combine his interests in sustainable growth, green building, and climate change policy.
Updated
05/22/2008
envstudies@brown.edu