Dr. McAfee’s research is an applied climatologist with experience in analyzing both historical climate and projections of future climate and in applying that information to resource management and conservation questions. She has worked on questions ranging from bias propagation within coupled models to the production of downscaled snow projections for Alaska and has a strong interest in climate services and public outreach.
Scott McCoy
My research draws from both Earth science and engineering to formulate and test mechanistic, predictive models that quantitatively describe the behavior of surface processes such as floods, landslides, and debris flows. On event or decadal times scales, many surface processes can devastate communities or pose geologic hazards. On geologic time scales, surface processes transport mass and energy across the Earth’s surface to shape the landscapes we live in.
Ruben Dagda
Ruben K. Dagda, Ph.D., received his doctoral training at the University of Iowa and his postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is currently investigating the molecular mechanisms that lead to mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress in cell culture, tissue and animal models of Parkinson’s disease.
Yong Zhang
Ph.D., Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2008
B.S., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Life Sciences, Shandong Normal University, China
Wendy Calvin
My research specialty is the optical and infrared spectroscopy of minerals and ices, using remote sensing data sets and laboratory analysis to identify and map the surface composition of solid planets in the solar system.
Angela Smilanich
My research focuses on the ecology and evolution of diet breadth via physiological studies of multitrophic interactions between plants, herbivores, and natural enemies. Specific avenues of study include: (1) evolutionary ecology of insect immunity (2) investigation of plant secondary chemistry as insect immunosuppressant, and (3) behavioral adaptations of herbivores to host plants.
Jeff Harper
The Harper lab is interested in how a plant can use as few as 28,000 genes to develop and survive under extreme environmental conditions, such as cold, heat, drought and salt stress. A primary focus is on calcium signaling. The lab employs genetic, cell, bioinformatic, and biochemical approaches, using Arabidopsis and yeast as model systems.
Yu (Frank) Yang
Dr. Yang’s current research interests and strengths are focused on the organic matter-mineral-bacteria interfacial redox reactions, critical for global cycles of carbon/nitrogen and emergent contaminants.
Ian Wallace
Genetic and biochemical dissection of plant cell wall biosynthesis, deposition, and regulation; plant protein kinase signal transduction; manipulation of plant cell wall digestibility for lignocellulosic biofuel and forage crop applications.
Dev Chidambaram
MER Lab focuses on the design, engineering, research, development and characterization of materials for electrochemical applications in sustainable energy generation and environmental protection. Our focus is on understanding electron transfer processes using spectroscopic techniques (including synchrotron-based techniques), and applying that knowledge to solve interdisciplinary materials and engineering problems. Electrochemistry and spectroscopy can be used to obtain complementary information; electrochemistry assesses the nature and kinetics of an electron transfer reaction and spectroscopy, often used simultaneously with electrochemistry in our research, provides chemical and molecular information of the same reaction. Our research is primarily in the area of materials for energy.