Previous Seminar Committees

Dr. Roger Bales is Distinguished Professor of Engineering and a founding faculty member at UC Merced, and has been active in water- and climate-related research for over 30 years. His scholarship includes over 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and more presentations, book chapters, and reports. Currently, his work focuses on California’s efforts to build the knowledge base and implement policies that adapt our water supplies, critical ecosystems and economy to the impacts of climate warming. He works with leaders in state agencies, elected officials, federal land managers, water leaders, non-governmental organizations, and other key decision makers on developing climate solutions for California. He is a fellow in the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been a professor at UC Merced since 2003, an Adjunct Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UC Berkeley since 2013. Previously, he was a Professor of hydrology at the University of Arizona from 1984 to 2003. He is Director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, Director of the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory,  and Director of the UC Water Security and Sustainability Research Initiative. 

Research interests include climate impacts and water resources, mountain hydrology and biogeochemistry, climate applications

Website

email: rbales@ucmerced.edu

Dr. Xuan Zhang research aims to gain a predictive and mechanistic understanding of the sources, chemistry, and lifetimes of air pollutants, with a particular focus on the physical and chemical processes associated with the formation and evolution of particulate matters, the essential component of haze in the air. She uses process-based lab experiments, advanced mass spectrometry techniques, and site/region/global-scale models to tackle problems associated with air pollution and climate change.

Website

email: xzhang87@ucmerced.edu

Touyee Thao is a 3rd year PhD student in the Soil and Environmental Physics Lab at UC, Merced. His research focus on investigating the effect of waste derived material e.g. biochar and compost on soil hydraulic and physicochemical properties.

Website

email: tthao8@ucmerced.edu

Stefano Casirati is a 3rd year PhD student in the Forest Ecohydrology & Watershed Systems (FEWS) Lab at UC, Merced. His research focuses on studying the effect of climate stressors on mountain hydrologic processes and forest ecosystems.

Website

email: scasirati@ucmerced.edu

Colleen and her lab develop sustainable food-energy-water systems with communities locally, nationally and globally through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Geographic Information Systems, integration of anthropology and engineering, and infusing science into policy. 

Website: https://engineering.ucmerced.edu/content/colleen-naughton 

cnaughton2@ucmerced.edu

Our lab explores the intersection of ecology, evolution, and environment.  We study how (1) molecular variation explains and causes differences between individuals, populations, species, and higher taxa and how (2) the environment shapes genetic, organismal, population, and community variation.   

Lab website: http://mnd.ucmerced.edu/   

mdawson@ucmerced.edu

*photo from Max Ogden

Christiana is a PhD student in the Earth Observation and Remote Sensing lab. She uses satellite and airborne imagery to study water quality, wetland vegetation, and carbon cycling in estuaries.

cade@ucmerced.edu

Jorge is an international PhD student, working on microbiology and ecology. He focuses on the diversity and distribution of microbes living vernal pools to test biogeography theories. He also studies the role of microbes living in symbiosis with vernal pool plants, to understand a rare plant behavior that allows survival under water saturation-rapid desiccation stress.

jmontielmolina@ucmerced.edu

Lillie studies native plant adaptation to climate change, specifically rapid adaptation to extreme climate events. She works with the cutleaf monkeyflower, a plant endemic to the Sierra Nevada.

lpennington@ucmerced.edu

Rebecca studies how nutrients and carbon move into, within, and out of ecosystems.  She is particularly interested in applying ecosystem science to find solutions to some of today’s most challenging problems, including climate climate, sanitation, nutrient pollution, and food production.

Check the Ryals lab

rryals @ucmerced.edu

Marie-Odile models emerging energy systems and climate change mitigation strategies, and study their environmental impacts using life cycle assessment (LCA). She also develops methodology for LCA practice.

Check the Fortier lab

mfortier2 @ucmerced.edu

Byran studies Lake Management, Mercury Cycling and Remediation, Cost-benefit Analysis, Hypolimnetic Oxygenation and Water Treatability.

Find Byran on Researchgate and LinkedIn

bfuhrmann @ucmerced.edu

Angel Santiago Fernandez-Bou works on multidisciplinary projects to preserve resources and habitat for society and nature at the Water Systems Management Lab at UC Merced. His focus is in finding solutions for Biosystems challenges that require combinations of Engineering, Environmental, and Socioeconomic approaches. His research experience ranges from hydrology and waste water treatment, to soil greenhouse gas emissions (link to publications). 

Find Angel S. at UC Merced, on Researchgate and LinkedIn

afernandezbou @ucmerced.edu