People

Dr. Jennifer S. Powers

(with Finn and Milo)

Education

1991 B.A. in Biology, Reed College

1995 M.S. in Forest Science, Oregon State University

2001 PhD. in Biology, Duke University

Honors and Awards

2009-2012 Resident Fellow, Institute on the Environment, UMN

2009-2011 McKnight Land Grant Professor, UMN

2006-2009 NASA New Investigator Award

2004-2008 NSF ADVANCE Postdoctoral Fellow

1999-2001 NASA Graduate Student Researcher Program Fellowship

2000-2001 NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant

Teaching

I teach Ecology and Society (3001) in the Fall semester. I am also coordinating a graduate course in Plant Traits in Fall 2009.

Complete CV pdf

Graduate Students

Heather Whittington

Heather is studying the responses of prairie legumes to climate change.

Justin Becknell

Justin is studying aboveground primary productivity in Costa Rican tropical dry forests.

Maga Gei

Maga (on the right) is studying regional patterns of microbial diversity in Costa Rican tropical dry forests and soil biogeochemical processes.

Moana McClellan

Moana is co-advised by Rebecca Montgomery and me. She is studying the landscape ecology and ecology of private secondary forests in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Junior Scientist

Lisa Kissing

Lisa is our junior scientist working on simulation modeling of carbon stocks in tropical dry forests.

Field Lab Manager

Daniel Perez Aviles

Daniel is our chief botanist and manages all of our field work.

Alumni

Yana Sorokin

Yana is a junior scientist in the lab studying how leaf reflectance and leaf traits vary seasonally among evergreen and deciduous tropical dry forest trees.

Matthew Warner

Matt was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota and is currently in medical school. He completed an REU in 2005, working on changes in soil carbon cycling with depth in Panamanian Oxisols.

Matthew Schneider

Matt (in the back with the green hat!) was an undergrad in the lab, working in Costa Rica and also on an independent project looking at litter decomposition and microbial dynamics during the winter at Cedar Creek. He is currently in dental school.

Stefani Salute

Stefani is an undergraduate student in the College of Biological Sciences. She has worked in the lab for two years, looking at nutrient effects on decomposition of leaf litter from tropical dry forests.