Philippe Vidon

Executive Director for the Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences

Philippe obtained his PhD in Geography from York University, ON, Canada in 2004, and subsequently occupied professor positions at Indiana University – Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI) and at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry a.k.a. ESF, in Syracuse, NY. There he served as Director of the Hydrological Systems Science Council, among other leadership appointments. His most recent research has focused on a broad range of topics including (but not limited to): watershed management, water quality, soil biogeochemistry (e.g., N, P, C, Hg cycling and soil N2O, CO2, and CH4 emissions), bioenergy, and the impact of beaver dam analogues on floodplain hydrogeomorphology and landscape resiliency.

Gabrielle Boisrame

The majority of Dr. Boisrame’s research focuses on the interactions between wildfire, land cover, and water in mountain regions of the Western USA. Since 2013 she has been using a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing, and hydrological modeling to explore how managing natural wildfire in landscapes can improve water resources and forest health. Before coming to DRI, she worked as an environmental scientist for the Delta Stewardship Council, a California State Agency. In this position, she studied adaptive management strategies and calculated large-scale water budgets. Other research areas include agricultural water management, consumptive use calculations, restoration of wetlands and streams, and groundwater resource management.

Peter Weisberg

Dr. Weisberg is interested in the causes and consequences of landscape change, including natural disturbances, effects of anthropogenic land use, ungulate-landscape interactions, and invasive species.  His research often considers past landscape change as a guide to understanding present and future condition, and integrates field studies, GIS, remote sensing and simulation modeling.  Ongoing research projects within his lab group address disturbance ecology, woodland expansion, post-fire succession, and ecological restoration in Great Basin pinyon-juniper woodlands; fire history and ecology of mountain big sagebrush communities; fire ecology of the Sierra Nevada (Lake Tahoe Basin); and the ecology of tamarisk invasions along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon.

Sudeep Chandra

Dr. Sudeep Chandra is an Associate Professor, Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno.  His laboratory conducts limnological studies related to the restoration or conservation of aquatic ecosystems. His projects include recovering native species, managing nonnative species, understanding the affects of land use change (mining, urbanization, etc) on water quality, and developing natural resource management & conservation plans for the world’s largest, freshwater fishes. We recognize that science is critical in developing longer-term, sustainable public policy.

Marjorie Matocq

Projects in her lab focus on studying patterns of geographic population genetic structure and the processes underlying such patterns. Because the current geographic distribution of genetic diversity is determined by a complex interplay of ecology, demography, and population history, the studies are performed at various spatial and temporal scales. To study the processes underlying patterns of genetic diversity and subdivision, we combine modern molecular genetic techniques with morphological and field studies.

Dr. Matocq’s research program is focused on a number of ecological and evolutionary questions at the interface of intra- and interspecific processes. Her research program is heavily collections-based and integrates traditional field and morphological data with molecular and genomic methods to elucidate pattern and process at several spatial and temporal scales. The majority of her work continues to focus on members of the Neotoma fuscipes species complex.

Thomas Albright

Thomas Albright employs landscape ecological and biogeographic perspectives to understand the causes and consequences of environmental change at local to global scales. His work has examined the role of climate and human dispersal in the spread of invasive plants in the US and China, the effects of extreme weather and disturbance on avian communities across the US, and the rate and patterns of land cover change and desertification in the West African Sahel.  In his research and teaching, Dr. Albright employs a variety of remote sensing platforms, field data, GIS, spatial analysis, and hierarchical modeling. His remote sensing work has included inventories of glacier cover in the Himalaya using synthetic aperture radar, documenting the rise and fall of the world’s largest water hyacinth infestation in East Africa, and characterizing heat waves using thermal remote sensing.  Dr. Albright has a long history of international research, applications, and teaching from over 15 countries and speaks French and Spanish proficiently.