Jan 04
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Brian Weeks

Brian Weeks

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In the Weeks lab, we work at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology to try to understand how large scale biodiversity patterns arose, and what they might tell us about how natural systems will respond to human activities. We have a particular focus on the impacts of climate change on birds, and are increasingly using computer vision tools to measure bird traits on large numbers of photographs of museum skeletal specimens. This new approach has enabled us to generate skeletal trait datasets at an unprecedented scale that have begun to reveal some fascinating patterns in bird morphology that we are using to understand biotic responses to global change.

Apr 24
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Joshua P Newell

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I work in the area of urban sustainability, with research questions at multiple scales and environmental and socio-economic systems. My work uses spatial analysis (esp. GIS and remote sensing) and mass-balance accounting (life cycle assessment, material flow analysis). My lab is starting to use big data from a range of sources (Zillow, Twitter, etc) and I am interested in collaborating with data sciences of various stripes on sustainability and equity challenges.

Nov 15
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Karen Alofs

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My research focuses on how environmental change, including climate, invasion and habitat destruction influences freshwater ecological communities across space and time. I am involved in a collaborative interdisciplinary project funded by a MIDAS Propelling Original Data Science (PODS) Grant: CHANGES: Collections, Heterogeneous data, And Next Generation Ecological Studies.We are developing protocols for integrating heterogeneous natural science datasets to investigate the impacts of environmental changes on species. Our project focuses on climate change impacts on inland lake fish communities across Michigan, drawing on more than a century’s worth of data and specimens archived at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (UMMZ) and the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR), which is a cooperative unit of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Fisheries Division and the University of Michigan.

Nov 15
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Neil Carter

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Carter’s research combines quantitative, theoretical, and field approaches to address challenging local to global wildlife conservation issues in the Anthropocene. His work includes projects on endangered species conservation in human-dominated areas of Nepal, post-war recovery of wildlife in Mozambique, human-wildlife coexistence in the American West, and the effects of artificial lights and human-made noise on wildlife habitat across the contiguous US. Research methods focus on: (1) spatializing both human and wildlife processes, (2) probabilistic methods to infer human-wildlife interactions (3) simulation models of coupled natural-human systems, and (4) forecasting and decision-support tools.

Jan 04
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Kathleen M Bergen

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Kathleen M Bergen, PhD, is Associate Research Scientist in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Bergen currently has interim administrative oversight of the SEAS Environmental Spatial Analysis Laboratory (ESALab) and is interim Director of the campus-wide Graduate Certificate Program in Spatial Analysis.

Prof. Bergen works in the areas of human dimensions of environmental change; remote sensing, GIS and biodiversity informatics; and environmental health and informatics. Her focus is on combining field and geospatial data and methods to study the pattern and process of ecological systems, biodiversity and health. She also strives to build bridges between science and social science to understand the implications of human actions on the social and natural systems of which we are a part. She teaches courses in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems. Formerly she served as a founding member of the UM LIbrary’s MIRLYN implementation team, directed the University Map Collection, and set up the M-Link reference information network.

Mar 08
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Ming Xu

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My research focuses on developing and applying computational and data-enabled methodology in the broader area of sustainability. Main thrusts are as follows:

  1. Human mobility dynamics. I am interested in mining large-scale real-world travel trajectory data to understand human mobility dynamics. This involves the processing and analyzing travel trajectory data, characterizing individual mobility patterns, and evaluating environmental impacts of transportation systems/technologies (e.g., electric vehicles, ride-sharing) based on individual mobility dynamics.
  2. Global supply chains. Increasingly intensified international trade has created a connected global supply chain network. I am interested in understanding the structure of the global supply chain network and economic/environmental performance of nations.
  3. Networked infrastructure systems. Many infrastructure systems (e.g., power grid, water supply infrastructure) are networked systems. I am interested in understanding the basic structural features of these systems and how they relate to the system-level properties (e.g., stability, resilience, sustainability).

A network visualization (force-directed graph) of the 2012 US economy using the industry-by-industry Input-Output Table (15 sectors) provided by BEA contains 405 industries. Each node represents a sector. The size of the node represents the economic output of the sector. The size and darkness of links represent the value of exchanges of goods/services between sectors. An interactive version and other data visualizations are available at http://mingxugroup.org/

Mar 08
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Bill Currie

William Currie

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Bill Currie studies how physical, chemical, and ecological processes work together in the functioning of ecosystems such as forests and wetlands.  He studies how human impacts and management alter key ecosystem responses including nutrient retention, carbon storage, plant species interactions, and plant productivity.   Dr. Currie uses computer models of ecosystems, including models in which he leads the development team, to explore ecosystem function across the spectrum from wildland to heavily human-impacted systems.  He often works in collaborative groups where a model is used to provide synthesis.  

He is committed to the idea that researchers must work together across traditional fields to address the complex environmental and sustainability issues of the 21st century.  He collaborates with field ecologists, geographers, remote sensing scientists, hydrologists, and land management professionals.

 

Mar 08
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Arun Agrawal

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Arun Agrawal, PhD, is the Samuel Trask Dana Professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Prof. Agrawal emphasizes the politics of international development, institutional change, and environmental conservation in his research and teaching. He has written critically on indigenous knowledge, community-based conservation, common property, population resources, and environmental identities. Prof. Agrawal is the coordinator for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions network and is currently carrying out research in central and east Africa as well as South Asia. Since 2013, Prof. Agrawal has served as the editor-in-chief of World Development and his recent work has appeared in Science, PNAS, Conservation Biology, Development and Change, among other journals. Preceding his work at U-M, Prof. Agrawal was educated at Duke University, the Indian Institute of Management, and Delhi University and has held teaching and research positions at Yale, Florida, McGill, Berkeley, and Harvard among other universities.

Selected papers and book chapters are available online and can be accessed at this link.

Additional science information available at World Science News