We’re excited to welcome a new post-doctoral scientist to the lab! Sofia Koutzoukis has joined us to work on the Vulnerability Assessment of Lower-Elevation Aspen Forests in the Great Basin.Sofia recently defended her PhD at Utah State University where she studied restoration treatments of sagebrush rangelands in the Intermountain West; focusing on canopy-interspace dynamics and the consequences of those dynamics for plant community structure and spatial distributions. She will be primarily working on the Great Basin Aspen project where she’ll be doing a deep dive into trend analysis along the sagebrush-aspen ecotone. She has a wealth of knowledge in plant ecology, R, disturbance dynamics, research proposals, manuscript writing and lots of other intangibles that are important in graduate school. We’re very excited to have her and she is going to be a huge asset to all of us – welcome to the lab Sofia!
Top image: Aspen stand, Sierra Madre Mountains, Wyoming