My background is in plant ecology and computer science. When I started as an undergraduate, I chose this particular combination because I loved plants and computer programming was a lot of fun for me. I received my MSc from the University of Calgary, working with Dr. John Addicott on yuccas and yucca moths. This was an entirely field-based community ecology thesis, and my computer programming skills were only useful when using R. After working as a computer programmer for Environment Canada, I chose to return to graduate school and pursue my PhD at the University of Toronto with Dr. Sharon Cowling. It was during my PhD research, that I was finally able to fully integrate these two topics. I started to use a group of process-based models known as Dynamic Vegetation Models, to better understand how plants may have responded to past climatic changes by shifting their ranges.
During my post-doc at ETH in Zurich with Dr. Harald Bugmann, I continued to use dynamic vegetation models to answer questions about plant responses to climate change. However, my research expanded to include additional and interacting factors, such as cattle grazing and forest management. In my current lab, we continue to work on questions about the influence of climate (and climate change) in forested communities using a variety of methods, such as field work, statistical and process-based models. Models can be powerful tools, to help us understand how plants species, communities and landscapes may respond and change to a variety of drivers. A more formal version of these events can be found in my CV.
Graduate students
Hoang Luu graduated with a B.S. in Mathematical Biology from the University of Houston. Prior to joining the lab, he worked on many computational research projects that looked into the chromosomes of flies, the disease dynamics in insects, and plant community patterns. His interest in using mathematical models to understand how plant species respond to climate change led him to join the Snell lab as a Ph.D. student. He is currently using a forest gap model to understand how forests in the Pacific Northwest respond to climate change when tree reproduction is dependent on weather and size.
Click here to read more about Hoang and his research.
Aaron Rudolph is a Ph.D. student broadly interested in oak-hickory forest dynamics (co-supervised with Dr. Brian McCarthy). He earned his B.S. in biology at Purdue University Fort Wayne and his M.Sc. in Biology at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana where he studied the dendrochronology of sugar maple. Aaron continues to use dendrochronology along with other ecological measures to better understand how climate change and human management impact the growth, recruitment, and reproduction of several hickory and oak species
Sunita Bati is a new PhD student, starting January 2024!
Undergraduate students
Clare Mattingly (2023 - 2024) is PACE student in the lab. Her research is looking the impacts of weevils on germination success in black oaks.
Georgia Rideau (2023 - current) is an undergraduate student, helping with the long term seed production studies.
Brennan Everitt (2023 - current) is an undergraduate student, helping with the long term seed production studies.
Sam Gutekanst (2023 - current) is an HTC undergraduate student in Environmental and Plant Biology. He has been learning about dendrochronology, by looking at the response of chestnut oak trees located just outside experimental plots.
Undergrads who have worked in the lab for research hours, PACE positions, summer field work or work study
Eliana Paukert (2018 - 2023) was an undergraduate who worked in the lab since her freshman year. She has helped with seed collections and sorting, field work, and the dendrochonology lab work.
Becca Wagenknecht (2017 - 2021) was an undergraduate student in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. Becca graduated in spring 2021. During her four years in the lab (wow!), she helped with seed collections, tree coring, and sample preparation. Her undergraduate thesis examined seedling recruitment and mycorrhizal associations.
Hannah Raile (2021 - 2022) is an undergraduate in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. She helped with field work and the long-term seed collection study.
Rachel Wichterman (2019 - 2020) was an undergraduate student in The Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, and was also a PACE student in the Snell lab. Rachel graduated in Fall 2020. Rachel completed preliminary surveys for a research project studying the path of mixed deciduous forest species in the secondary succession of clear-cut pine plantations in Appalachian Ohio.
Maddy Back (2019) is an undergraduate majoring in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, minoring in Environmental and Plant Biology, and a certificate in GIS.
Sophee Newbauer (2023) is an undergraduate student who did a research project, analyzing the recruitment of knob cone pines. Maura Linthicum (2020, 2022 - 2023) was an undergraduate student in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. She has worked on a variety of projects in the lab, from measuring tree growth in response to different soil treatments, to helping with the long term seed production studies. Cat Gavin (2022) is an undergraduate student in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, helping with the long term seed production studies. Elena Delach (2022 - 2023) was PACE student in the lab, working on designing a better seed trap design and quantifying seed production from different soil treatments. She also helped Aaron with his dendrochronology research. Maggie Lacey (2021 - 2022) is an undergraduate in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. She had a PACE position in the lab and worked on a dendrochronology study about the impact of soil treatments on tree growth. Gabi Lindsey (2021) did a summer HTC Summer Research Apprenticeship in my lab. Zach May (2020) was an undergraduate student in The Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. He helped with the dendrochronology field and lab work, in collaboration with Dr. DeForest. Loren Nogrady (2020) Hannah Kopp (2020) Devra Roberts (2020) Maura Linthicum (2020) Alex Ford (2018 - 2019) was a PACE student in the Snell lab, and a computer science major. Their project used the output from a dynamic forest gap model, and created a 3-D animation of the simulation results using Blender. Ava Heller (2018) Sam Kukor (2017)
Graduate Alumni
Timothy Thrippleton successfully defended his PhD in May 2017. Tim was co-supervised with Dr. Harald Bugmann at ETH Zurich. His thesis simulated how understorey vegetation changes forest composition, structure and succession dynamics, via competition for light and water.
Laura Schuler successfully defended her PhD in May 2018. Laura was co-supervised with Dr. Harald Bugmann at ETH Zurich. Her thesis quantified the impact of species biodiversity on ecosystem service provisioning in alpine forests.
Abigail Goszka successfully defended her M.Sc. in June 2019. Her thesis examined seed production and seed quality in red maple (Acer rubrum) in the central Appalachian Region.
You can read more about her project by clicking here.
Sarah Smith successfully defended her M.Sc. in August 2019. Her thesis examined the drivers of masting in black (Quercus velutina) and chestnut (Q. montanta) oak species.
Taylor Sparbanie was a M.Sc. student, she successfully her thesis in September 2021. For her thesis, she used the FIA database to examine the role of dispersal mechanism and disturbance on seedling establishment. Taylor continued to work in the lab, as a paid data analyst until July 2022.
Tyler Arnold successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis in July 2023. His thesis examined how microclimate influences phenological synchrony of chestnut oak (Quercus montana) and how the level of synchrony during flower production is related to the high reproductive of individuals.
Interested in joining?
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Undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in joining the lab should contact me for more details ([email protected]) and we can discuss possible research topics.
Note: Although I love computer programming, students in my lab are not expected to have any previous programming experience and your project does not need to have any modelling as part of it. However, good quantitative skills and a willingness to learn are very important!