Walker Lab Disturbance and Ecosytem Ecology
People
Faculty
Xanthe Walker
Xanthe Walker is an Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society. She is an ecosystem ecologist interested in understanding the impacts of environmental change and disturbance on the structure and function of northern terrestrial ecosystems. She has experience in disturbance ecology, dendrochronology, statistics, and the application of stable and radioactive carbon isotopes.
Email: xanthe.walker@nau.edu
Michelle Mack
Michelle Mack is a Regents Professor at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society. See Mack Lab for more information.
Email: michelle.mack@nau.edu
Research Associates
Hillary Cooper, PhD
Hillary is an evolutionary ecologist broadly interested in species’ response to global change. She has studied the combined effects of drought and invasive species throughout the Southwest, with an emphasis on how intraspecific differences in traits and trait plasticity affect adaptation to rapid environmental change.
Email: hillary.cooper@nau.edu
Zach Madsen, MSc
Email: Zacharaih.Madsen@nau.edu
Jeremy Forsythe
Jeremy studies the drivers and impacts of wildfire in the boreal forest using satellite remote sensing products and machine learning models. Specifically, he seeks to assess where and when reburning occurs and determine the consequences of reburning for post-fire successional trajectories throughout the northwestern North American boreal forest.
Email: jeremy.forsythe@nau.edu
Olivia Hajek, PhD
Post-doctoral Researcher
Camille Butkus, MSc
Lab Technician
Camille is interested in understanding the biogeochemical processes responsible for the movement and transformation of nutrients in plants, soil, and water. Her prior work focused on soil nitrogen and carbon cycling in agricultural and riparian contexts.
Graduate Students
Nicholas Link
PhD Student
Nick is a PhD candidate studying how ecological succession plays out in fuel breaks across Alaska and Yukon. His work is helping create nature-based solutions to increasing wildfire risk across the region.
Anastasia Pulak
PhD Student
Anastasia is a PhD candidate. She is studying how wildfire-induced changes in vegetation impact soil carbon accumulation and turnover.
Matthew Behrens
MSc Student
Matt is interested in working on questions at the interface of land management and academia. He has experience in fire suppression and management throughout the Western US and Alaska, along with expertise as a field lead in fire ecology programs in AK.
Felecia Amundsen
MSc Student
Felecia’s research focuses on how fire management practices shape the ecology of forests in Interior Alaska and how these changes affect subsistence resources that local communities depend on. She is particularly interested in food security, the role of traditional ecological knowledge in understanding and managing ecosystems, and the ways people have historically interacted with and relied on plants.
Bjorn Larson
PhD Student
Maya Chandar-Kouba
PhD Student
Maya is a first-year PhD student in the Mack-Walker lab. She has previously worked at the Harvard Forest LTER and the Toolik Field Station. Her current research is based in Interior Alaska, where she specifically studies how wildfires impact nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and below-ground structures across plant communities.
Abby Hay
PhD Student
Alumni
Savannah Wilson, MSc
Thesis: Drivers of fire severity in western North American boreal deciduous forests
Sonja Noomah, MSc
Thesis: Fuel reduction treatmens reduce hazard trees in spruce-beetle affected stands in Alaska
Betsy Black, MSc
Thesis: Drivers of fire severity in western North American boreal deciduous forests
Ellery Vaughan, MSc
Thesis: Nitrogen and phosphorus limitation of plant productivity and ecosystem carbon storage changes with post-fire succession in an Interior Alaskan boreal forest