She received her PhD in Biology from Duke University in 2001, and did postdoctoral work at SUNY-Stony Brook and the University of Minnesota. She is broadly trained in ecosystems ecology, biogeochemistry, and plant ecology, and has worked in tropical forests in Central and South America for over 20 years. The long-term goal of her research program is to understand how climate change, biophysical factors, and human activities shape biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of tropical forests. Her current projects include a long-term study of how the dynamics of regenerating tropical forest change in response to climate variability. GCC Course Taught GCC 3006