Jiquan Chen, PhD
Professor
E-Mail: jqchen@msu.edu |
Phone: 517-884-1884
A native of Shanxi in Northern China, Dr. Chen received his undergraduate education
in grassland ecology (Inner Mongolia University), MS in forest ecology (Chinese Academy
of Sciences), and PhD in ecosystem Analysis (University of Washington). His postdoc
training was in the stream ecology and ecosystem management. He was a Bullard
Fellow at Harvard University (1999-2000). He was on the faculty at Michigan Tech
University (1993-2001) and University of Toledo (2001-2014).
His research and academic instruction programs are on ecosystem processes and their
interactive feedbacks to the biophysical and human activities, including community ecology
to 3-D canopy structure, forest fragmentation, edge effects, riparian zone, conservation
biology, landscape ecology, and micrometeorology. His current research lies in the
coupled effects of global climate change and human activities on terrestrial ecosystems,
global change ecology, bioenergy, and carbon/water fluxes. He will be teaching
special topics on coupled human and natural systems, environmental instrumentations,
image processing and GIS, and global change science.
He is a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS, 2011) and a fellow of
Ecological Society of America (ESA, 2014).
Dr. Chen is also the Editor-in-Chief for two book series: 1) Landscape Ecology
(Springer); and 2) Ecosystem Science and Application –ESA (HEP & De Gruyter).
He is the founder and chief scientist of the US-China Carbon Consortium (USCCC)
. He enjoys Thai Chi practice and Buddha Meditation. He is also a member of the
Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior (EEBB)
Graduate Program and the Environmental
Science & Policy Program (ESPP).
Current Members
Michael Abraha, PhD
Research Associate
E-Mail: abraha@msu.edu |
Phone: 249-290-9766
My research interest lies in measuring and modeling the
physical processes involved in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, with a
special focus on energy and mass exchange measurement between surfaces (bare soil,
vegetated, wet-lands and/or water) and the atmosphere using
micrometeorological methods. I am interested in investigating energy balance
closure using eddy covariance measured fluxes; and also the influence of
land-use and climate changes on heat, carbon dioxide, water vapor and other
trace gas fluxes.
My previous studies concentrated on measurement and modeling
of crop growth and development, soil water balance, solar radiation and its
interception by shrubs, and evapotranspiration from sparse trees. I was also
involved in investigating inexpensive means of estimating sensible heat flux
from high frequency air temperature measurements.
Yi Fan (Angela)
PhD Student
E-Mail: fanyi2@msu.edu |
Phone: 419-215-6803
I'm involved in an integrated research on the Life Cycle Sustainability
Assessment of photovoltaic technology and its production. The study is
divided into Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing, Social
Life Cycle Assessment, and comprehensive structural equation modeling (SEM).
To accomplish the assessment, structural equation modeling will be intensive
used in the research. My goal is to explore innovative and efficient PV
pipelines to meet the growing and changing demands for efficient PV
technology and production, renewable energy, and ecosystem services for
society and to examine how existing trade-offs differ from other energy
revenues.
Vincenzo Giannico
Visiting Scholar | University of Bari, Italy
Vincenzo Giannico is a PhD candidate in "Biodiversity, Agriculture and Environment” at the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (DISAAT), University of Bari. His doctoral research focuses on ecosystem service trade-offs of urban and peri-urban forest areas using high resolution remotely sensed data (i.e. LiDAR, Multi- and Hyperspectral data).
Specifically, the aim of his research is to find explanatory variables derived from remote sensing data capable of estimating carbon stored in biomass, the amount of biodiversity and its patterns, and to understand the relationships among these ecosystem services. Previously, he did an internship in "Planetek Italia", a leader company in the field of Earth Observation technologies, where he performed pre-processing and advanced analysis methodologies on optical and laser sensor data and more. His main research interests are ecosystem modeling, ecosystem services, remote sensing of the environment, and applications of geomatics in forestry.
Ranjeet John, PhD
Research Associate
Ranjeet's research interests focus on the applications of Remote Sensing and Geospatial technologies to study biophysical attributes that include carbon, water and energy fluxes at varying scales in context of ecosystem ecology, land cover/land use, and climate change. His current position in the LEES lab requires him to synthesize existing meteorological and medium to coarse resolution satellite derived-data (for e.g., drought indices, extreme climate anomalies & non-parametric trend analysis). In addition, his research also involves scaling up from in situ observations from various eddy covariance flux towers and standard ground truth methods to a regional scale in context of rapid climatic and socio-economic changes (in the Mongolian Plateau and elsewhere).
Raffaele Lafortezza, PhD
Adjunct Professor, Center for Global Change and Earth Observations
Dr. Raffaele Lafortezza is Adjunct Professor at the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations (CGCEO), Michigan State University. He holds a PhD in Landscape Ecology and Planning from the University of Bari (2002) and has accumulated considerable experience in landscape ecology issues by participating in numerous research projects and scientific collaborations conducted worldwide. His main research interest lies in the fields of landscape modeling at multiple spatial and temporal scales, sustainable land management in the context of global change, ecosystem services associated with green infrastructures and nature-based solutions, quantitative assessment of biodiversity, and analysis of ecological disturbances, including forest fires and fragmentation in wildland urban interfaces. In addition, he seeks to understand the impact of human activity on ecosystems (i.e., coupled human and natural systems) and to discover methods for preserving ecological patterns and related processes/services.
Dr. Lafortezza has developed his research interests in the United States (University of Toledo, Michigan State University), Canada (University of Guelph), Japan (University of Tsukuba, University of Tokyo), and the United Kingdom (University of Cambridge) and has been involved, as principal- and co-investigator, in many research projects. He is Associate Editor of the journal "Urban Forestry & Urban Greening” (Elsevier) and a member of the Editorial Board of the Springer journals “Landscape Ecology” and “Ecological Processes”.
Cheyenne Lei
PhD student
Cheyenne is a doctoral student in the LEES lab at Michigan State University. She holds a Masters of Arts in Geography from Western Michigan University and a Bachelor of Science in Earth Science from Northern Michigan University. She is interested in geographic information systems, cartography and environmental and resource analysis. Her focus is in analyzing water quality and land use and land cover change at multiple spatial and temporal scales, with emphasis on providing sustainable land and water management and addressing the impact of anthropogenic activities on water quantity and quality. She has collaborated alongside multiple watershed councils within Michigan in water data collection, invasive species monitoring and public education.
Zutao Ouyang
Research Associate
My former research focused on mapping and investigating
invasive plants in wetlands (such as Spartina alterniflorain east coast of China
by remote sensing techniques and GIS. Currently, my research interest has moved on to
carbon fluxes of terrestrial ecosystems, as I think carbon related problems such as
greenhouse gases, carbon storage and cycling , and so on are core issues of global
climate change. I love science, but I also like many other things, like
cycling, swimming, playing ping-pong and reading.
Hogeun Park
PhD Student
Hogeun is currently developing a synthesis study reviewing urbanization and coupled human and nature systems (CHNS). Before joining LEES, he studied social capital and network contingency on a local development project. During his master's degree, he successfully participated in international research workshops as a member of the Asian Program for Incubation of Environmental Leaders (APIEL) and did an internship in the social science division at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). His first professional career was a Cooperation Agent at the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) from 2008 — 2010 where he worked in both Pelileo and Saquisili City Hall in Ecuador as a GIS specialist.
Changliang Shao, PhD
Research Associate
E-Mail: clshao@msu.edu |
Phone: 517-974-1750
My
research interests aimed at understanding human-environment interactions through a focus
on land-use and land-cover changes through using eddy covariance technique in
grassland ecosystems: from observation to data analysis of carbon, water and
energy fluxes. I have been the one maintaining two mobile flux towers in
Inner Mongolia for 3 years and opened the eddy covariance data in public via
internet. Recent work has used two mobile eddy flux towers to study different
disturbance ecosystems under the same environment, which is valuable for
modeling precision, and contribute us to understand the underlying effect
mechanism through different management types. I have served the NASA LCLUC
Science Team, the NSFC and the Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences. In
2009 I was elected fellow of the US-China Carbon Consortium (USCCC).
Gabriela Shirkey
Lab Manager
Gabriela regularly edits publications, promotes the website, and organizes fieldwork campaigns for multiple projects. Her interests include discovering the links between human action and landscape change as well as a population's ability to address this change. She has volunteered with both the Huron River Watershed Council in Ann Arbor and the Michigan Inland Lakes Partnership to gain a better understanding of how local inititives can make a difference spatially.
Prior to LEES, she worked on two human-environment research projects within
the Department of Social Sciences and with EEPP students at Michigan
Technological University investigating the role social influence plays in
land use decision making, conservation practices, and geothermal energy.
Yahn-Jauh Su
PhD Student
My research interest focuses on the relationship between the
metabolism of ecosystems and the environmental regimes and how the
relationship responds to human land use and climate change.
I would like to explore the relationship
from both ecosystem and community perspectives.The former concentrates on the intrinsic
mechanisms within a community, such as how biodiversity, foodweb structure, community
dynamics and the species interactions adapt to environmental regimes and
maintain the stability of the system while latter focuses on the energy and
material transfer and flux within and between ecosystems and their adjacent
environment. My research is currently
funded by the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) and focus on how
crop types and land-use history impact the metabolism of bioenergy
agricultural ecosystems. We monitor the carbon sequestration by eddy covariance (EC)
techniques and some
budget-related ecosystem functions, including aboveground net primary
production (ANPP), belowground net primary production (BNPP), photosynthesis
rate and soil respiration in corn and switchgrass farms which converted from
conservation reserve program (CRP) and conventional agricultural zones near
Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), Michigan.
Ruqun Wu (Susie)
Research Associate
I joined the team in fall 2013 to pursue my Ph.D. study in the research area of life
cycle sustainability
assessment. I have bachelor degree in Agronomy and Master degrees in
Environment and Energy Studies. During my Master study, I grew interested in the
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). After graduation, I began working on LCA related
topics in China (e.g. eco-design, carbon footprint) and I found that the
popularization of partial LCA enables many companies
to use “halo effects” which jeopardizes the company as they may “green wash” by claiming a product system as “green
” simply because it has a superior sustainability than something else.
Thus, a holistic way of assessing product systems' overall sustainability is
needed in order to help the industry better understand their current performance and
improve policy.
The topic which Professor JiQuan
Chen and Doctor Defne Apul are working on is very interesting to me. They are conducting life cycle
sustainability analysis of proposed photovoltaic technologies and comparing them to
different alternatives.
I am excited to begin my work here and study this most
interesting, and interdisciplinary, topic.
