Meet Our New Cohort of 2015-16 Global Change Fellows

This year the SE CSC will be funding 12 Global Change Fellows representing four colleges and seven departments from across NC State University. And the stellar fellows are:
Kristi Backe, Department of Entomology
Research area: Environmental factors mitigating the effects of urban warming on tree pests, tree health, and ecosystem services.
Geneva Ely, Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Research area: Development of a consistent historical climate dataset for eastern North Carolina and evaluation and analysis of a blended set of climate projections for this region.
Kyle Garrison, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
Research area: Adaptation of coat color changing species to climate change and plowing new ground in investigating effects of snow duration on unstudied species such as weasels and jackrabbits.
Sean Giery, Department of Applied Ecology
Research area: How humans may be driving rapid evolutionary change in an ecologically important fish species of the Bahamas.
Erica Henry, Department of Biological Sciences
Research area: Understanding what causes threatened and endangered species to be rare, in particular, by incorporating projections of future precipitation regimes into a population viability analysis for Miami blue butterflies.
Amirhossein Mazrooei, Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering
Research area: Developing probabilistic statistical downscaling methods that utilize the entire ensemble of forecasts from Global Climate Models to develop streamflow forecasts.
Gabriella Pardee, Department of Applied Ecology
Research area: Studying the impacts of climate change on plant-pollinator interactions in montane regions of Colorado.
Philip Patton, Department of Applied Ecology
Research area: Biological interactions and the occurrence of species. Specifically, quantifying the effects, extent, and management implications of co-occurrence among birds in Puerto Rico; Improving estimates of species occurrence by incorporating the effects of biological interactions.
Georgina Sanchez, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
Research area: Coupling data-driven models of human decision making with spatially and temporally dynamic land use change models. Will also work on designing and implementing an integrated research program in which data collected from social surveys can be used to parameterize land use change models focused on North Carolina’s Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula.
Megan Thoemmes, Department of Biological Sciences
Research area: The ecology and evolution of urban nests and warrens of vertebrates; and shifts in the pathogens to which they are exposed due to global warming.
Rene Valdez, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
Research area: Integrating decision sciences to an emerging wildlife conservation tool with global implications in genetic pest management. Will be conducting a choice experiment that entails soliciting decision information from conservation practitioners regarding the use of new genetic tools to control invasive species and protect biodiversity.
Laura Villegas, Department of Agricultural and Natural Resources Economics
Research area: Integrate rapid environmental change into the design of  feasible and effective conservation and agricultural policy instruments that account for the synergy between productive economic activity and the ecological context in order to promote continual conservation and flourishing.