Global Change Ecologist

Sea levels are rising and droughts, fires, and major storms are having effects around the globe. With changes in Earth’s climate and biodiversity (the different species of plants, animals, and other forms of life) affecting human safety, many ecologists and other scientists, computer technologists and engineers are working hard.  Their collaborative efforts use information from the present and even distant past to create and update computer models that predict future change. Global Change Ecologist Xi Yang uses drones and other high-tech tools to gather information about trees and their survival rates under different conditions. Earth System and Computer Scientist Charles Zender studies the dust and soot that makes its way into snow, ice, and desert sands a great distance from the factories that produced it.