Current Lab Members

Paul Moorcroft

Principal Investigator
Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Ecological dynamics of terrestrial plant communities and ecosystems; biosphere-atmosphere interactions; mechanistic models of animal movement.

Rhemi Toth

My research focuses on understanding drivers of animal movement and habitat selection. For my PhD, I am developing an agent-based model of European roe deer in the Italian Alps to investigate how internal states, such as energy balance, thermoregulatory stress, memory, and fear, interact to shape roe deer movement decisions. This work utilizes GPS, camera trap, and physiological data collected in the field to construct a mechanistic model of roe deer movement. In addition to my work on roe deer, I have also studied lion habitat selection in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, South Africa, and am developing a project to investigate shade-seeking behavior in African ungulates in a savanna context. Before starting my PhD in 2022, I earned a B.S. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Tufts University (2020) and worked as a GIS scientist at an environmental consulting firm in Boston.

Jiameng Lai 

Postdoctorial Fellow

My work integrates plant physiology theories, land surface modeling, satellite remote sensing, and data assimilation techniques to monitor, understand, and predict the complex dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems in response to environmental change. My current work focus on tracking terrestrial carbon-water exchanges by leveraging cutting-edge tracers including carbonyl sulfide (OCS) and carbon-13 isotopes. 

Link to personal website https://jiamenglai.github.io/

Ross Noble 

Undergraduate researcher

I am an Undergraduate Researcher interested in Ecology. My research focuses on using and analyzing remote sensing data to model forest canopy structure/characteristics and microclimate over time. I hope to aid in increasing the understanding of ecosystems and animals' behaviors within them.

Julia Doan 

Undergraduate Researcher

Dongmin (Dennis) Kim

Associate

I am a quantitative ecologist with a background in statistics and the founder and data curator of the Move Disease Archive. My research broadly focuses on applying statistical and mathematical models to problems in movement ecology. In particular, I am interested in identifying how dynamics in the internal states of individual animals (e.g., memory, infection status, or physiological condition) influence movement behavior, as well as developing quantitative tools to better understand ecological and disease-related processes.

Meri Petollari

Lab Administrator