Update: I am now a post-doc in Dave Rizzo's lab at the University of California, Davis. My new research focuses on the effect of Sudden Oak Death on the ecology of coastal California forests. I continue to work with Wayne Sousa's lab at UC-Berkeley, and my tropical forest diversity research is ongoing. However, this web site may disappear in the near future. Please see my new webpage for updated information.

My dissertation examined seedling dynamics in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador: a highly diverse lowland rainforest in the upper Amazonian basin. I combined observational studies using annual seedling censuses with manipulative field experiments, and tested hypotheses about ecological mechanisms that might maintain forest diversity. In 2002 I established 600 1-m2 seedling plots in the Yasuní Forest Dynamics Plot, part of a network of large-scale study plots coordinated by the Center for Tropical Forest Science at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The plots are in sets of three, situated around each of 200 seed traps already in the YFDP as part of ongoing phenological studies. Each seedling is marked with a unique number and measured. Data from annual ongoing seedling plot censuses will quantify spatial and temporal patterns in seedling distributions and dynamics. I compared these patterns to those predicted by mechanisms hypothesized to be controlling the composition of the seedling assemblage to determine the importance of each of these mechanisms to maintaining diversity in Yasuní.

Advisor: Dr. Wayne Sousa, Department of Integrative Biology. [see also: The Sousa Lab webpage]
Additional Thesis Committee Members: David Ackerly, John Battles and Carla D'Antonio.

A pdf version of my c.v. is available here.

My research has been funded by: Center for Tropical Forest Science, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; US National Science Foundation; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California - Berkeley; Center for Latin American Studies, University of California - Berkeley; Sigma Xi Society