Lab Members
Matthew Wallenstein
...keeps the lab going, and tries to keep track of everything going on!
Matt's CV
Postdocs
Colin Bell (Postdoctoral Associate)
Colin completed his Ph.D. in 2009 at Texas Tech Univ. His research focuses on soil microbial taxonomic and functional responses to climate variability. He has used pyrosequencing, fatty acid analysis, enzyme activities, and Biolog techniques to assess microbial communities across different terrestrial biomes. His long-term research efforts include soil microbial responses to increased precipitation variability in the Chihuahuan desert grasslands in BBNP. He has also conducted long-term studies in agroecosystems in the Texas High Plains in order to assess crop-sustainability issues regarding soil-functional responses to different cropping-management practices. His more recent efforts have focused on understanding how changes in precipitation may offset the C-balance of Piñon-Juniper woodlands in the northern Chihuahuan Desert region at the Sevilleta LTER site. Colin has most recently joined our research efforts at the PHACE experimental site in Wyoming. The goal of this project is to characterize the effects of elevated temperatures and atmospheric CO2 on the metabolic and physiological characteristics of rhizosphere-associated microbes and plant communities in this mixed grass prairie.
Akihiro (Aki) Koyama (Postdoctoral Associate)
Aki is a visiting scholar interested in biogeochemistry in plant-soil-microbe complex. He earned his Ph. D. from University of Idaho where he worked on fire effects on nitrogen dynamics in coniferous forests of central Idaho. He studied soil organic carbon balance in the Nevada FACE Facility as a post-doctoral fellow at Washington State University. He is currently involved in a study investigating how nitrogen deposition affects biogeochemical cycles in an arctic tundra ecosystem.
Graduate Students
Jessica Ernakovich (PhD Student; NSF and DOE Graduate Fellow)
Jessica has a B.S. in organic chemistry from Cal Poly, and started her graduate studies in fall 2007. She is bravely trying to develop proteomic tools for examining microbial physiology, especially in Arctic and alpine environments.
Barbara Fricks (PhD Student; NSF IGERT Fellow)
Barbara comes from DC, where she spent time working in policy and the government after earning her M.S. In Soil Science from PSU in 2007. She started at CSU in 2009 with a NSF IGERT fellowship to study biofuels, and is interested in enzymatic degradation of switchgrass in natural systems.
Laurel Lynch (PhD Student; NSF IGERT Fellow)
Laurel has a B.A. in biology from St. Olaf College and began her graduate studies in fall 2012. She is interested in arctic biogeochemistry and the effects of soil warming on permafrost degradation and microbial ecology.
Jenny Rocca (Phd Student)
Carolyn Livensperger (MS Student)
Alumni
Sarah Evans (PhD awarded 2012)
Meg Steinweg (PhD awarded 2011)
Caroline Melle (MS awarded 2013)
Claudia Boot (Postdoctoral Associate, NSF Office of Polar Programs Postdoc Fellow)
Claudia finished her Ph.D. at UCSC in 2007 which focused on the structure elucidation of secondary metabolites from marine-derived fungi. She made to jump to soil ecology by doing postdoctoral work at UCSB, studying the stress response of microbes to drought; and is currently applying her analytical chemistry training to understanding dissolved organic matter in the arctic jointly at UCSB and CSU
