FACULTY MEMBERS
Faculty work on all aspects of climate including climatic processes, policy design, and effects on plant life. Here we’ve listed faculty members’ climate-change-related interests. Contact information is available on their web pages.
Charles W. (Andy) Anderson, Department of Teacher Education
Student environmental literacy, related to carbon cycles.
http://edr1.educ.msu.edu/EnvironmentalLit/index.htm
http://ed-web2.educ.msu.edu/researchprofiles/search/profileview.asp?email=andya@msu.edu
Jeff Andresen, Department of Geography and State Climatologist
Agricultural meteorology, applied climatology, Michigan
http://www.pileus.msu.edu/about/people/bio_andresen.htm
http://www.geo.msu.edu/faculty/andresen.html
Ravi Bhavnani, Department of Political Science
Mechanisms and feedback loops underlying the relationship between ecological scarcity and conflict.
http://polisci.msu.edu/bhavnani
David Campbell, Department of Geography
Nature and magnitude of the interactions of climate and land use/cover change across East Africa; social and economic aspects of drought and desertification.
http://www.geo.msu.edu/faculty/campbell.html
Jeff Conner, Department of Plant Biology and Kellogg Biological Station
Rapid evolution in response to environmental change; insect-plant interactions, especially pollination; invasive species; evolutionary and ecological genetics.
http://www.kbs.msu.edu/faculty/conner/
Jim Detjen, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism
Climate change and the media; public understanding
http://ej.msu.edu/faculty-staff.php
Thomas Dietz, Sociology and Environmental Science and Policy Program
Environmental values, environmental decision making, drivers of global change.
http://sociology.msu.edu/tdietz.html
Julie E. Doll, Education and Outreach Coordinator, Long-term Ecological Research Project, Kellogg Biological Station
Doll works with stakeholders—including farmers, Extension Educators, policymakers, teachers, and students—to understand and meet their educational needs about the ecology of agricultural landscapes, with a primary focus on the relationship between climate change and field crop agriculture.
http://lter.kbs.msu.edu/about/staff/
Steve Hamilton, Department of Zoology and Kellogg Biological Station
Climate change in the Great Lakes region and particularly its impacts on water quantity and quality, and reciprocal interactions between climate and aquatic biogeochemical processes.
http://www.kbs.msu.edu/faculty/hamilton/index.php
David W. Hyndman, Department of Geological Sciences
Measuring and modeling the influences of climate changes on water resources. Process based simulations linking climate to hydrology. Linking trends in surface water flows to climate and land use changes.
http://www.geology.msu.edu/people/hyndman.html
Michael Jones, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Effects of global warming on fisheries in the Great Lakes.
http://glpd.fw.msu.edu/Mike
Stan Kaplowitz, Department of Sociology
Attitudes towards global warming and energy conservation.
http://sociology.msu.edu/skaplowitz.html
Eva Kassens, School of Planning, Design and Construction and Global Urban Studies Program
Research centers on sustainability and large scale urban planning projects that are triggered by global forces, including climate change.
http://sites.google.com/site/ekassens/
John Kerr, Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies
Functioning of and compensation for ecosystem services. Linking farmers in India to voluntary international carbon markets.
https://www.carrs.msu.edu/faculty/viewPage.php?netID=jkerr
Jennifer Lau, Department of Plant Biology and Kellogg Biological Station
How environmental perturbations, such as biological invasions and climate change, affect the population biology of native species, species interactions, and the evolutionary trajectories of plant populations.
http://www.kbs.msu.edu/faculty/lau/
Julie Libarkin, Geological Sciences and Division of Science and Mathematics Education
Geocognition - how people perceive and understand the Earth. Applications to climate and environmental science.
https://www.msu.edu/~libarkin
Scott Loveridge, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics
Collaborator, NSF-funded project entitled, "Agents of Change: A
Multidisciplinary Protocol for Assessing Climate Impacts, Vulnerability,
and Adaptation for Regional and International Markets." Co-PI on
projects investigating the feasibility of wind power in various Michigan
locations.
http://www.aec.msu.edu/faculty/loveridge.htm
Lifeng Luo, Department of Geography
How the land and atmosphere interact through hydrologic processes and how this interaction affects the climate system.
http://drought.geo.msu.edu/
Aaron M. McCright, Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology
American conservative movement response to climate change, climate change as a social problem, climate change in the mass media.
http://sociology.msu.edu/amccright.html
Gary Mittelbach, Department of Zoology and Kellogg Biological Station
Community ecology, biodiversity, aquatics.
http://www.kbs.msu.edu/faculty/mittelbach/
Nathan Moore, Department of Geography
Focal areas include regional climate modeling and climate variability; impacts of human activity on the hydrologic (water) cycle, especially in China; links between climate change and land use change/ human systems; East Africa; Latin America.
https://www.msu.edu/~moorena/
Sarah Nicholls, Departments of Geography and Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies
Impacts of climate change on recreation and tourism businesses and activities; stakeholder engagement; tourist perceptions.
http://www.carrs.msu.edu/faculty/viewPage.php?netID=nicho210
Jennifer Olson, Department of Telecommunications, Informational Studies and Media
Land use change patterns and drivers, and the impact of climate change on farmers and pastoralists. Currently conducting research in the Climate-Land Interaction Project (CLIP) on the linkages between land use and climate change in East Africa- if and how land use change affects the local and regional climate, and how climate change may affect people's decisions on using land use.
http://tism.msu.edu/users/jennifer-olson
Nathaniel Ostrom, Department of Zoology
Understanding the role of microbial nitrification and denitrification in soils to nitrous oxide fluxes to the atmosphere; Understanding the affect of climate change on carbon cycling in aquatic environments including the Great Lakes. Project Groups: NEON, GLACEO and GLEON
http://myprofile.cos.com/ostromn
Helen Perlstein Pollard, Department of Anthropology
Within the context of human ecology Pollard focuses on (1) human adaptation to environmental fluctuation and (2) the impact of humans on the environment in the context of the emergence and development of prehistoric states and empires.
http://anthropology.msu.edu/faculty/pollard.shtml
David Poulson, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism
Climate change and the media; public understanding
http://ej.msu.edu/faculty-staff.php
Jiaguo Qi, Department of Geography and Center for Global Change and Earth Observations
Investigate land use/land cover dynamics and their interactions with regional climate, using remotely sensed information and regional climate models.
http://www.globalchange.msu.edu/qi.html
Phil Robertson, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and Kellogg Biological Station
Greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes; full-cost accounting of mitigation potentials in managed and natural ecosystems; methane, nitrous oxide, CO2.
http://www.kbs.msu.edu/research/faculty/126
Gene Safir, Department of Plant Pathology
Agricultural effects.
http://www.plantpathology.msu.edu/SafirGene/tabid/104/Default.aspx
J. Mark Scriber, Department of Entomology
Effects of regional climate warming across the Great Lakes and New England on biotic and abiotic factors affecting the distribution, ecology, and societal impacts of herbivorous insects.
http://ent.anr.msu.edu/Directory/Facultypages/scriber/tabid/170/Default.aspx
Tom Sharkey, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
My lab studies the interactions between the biosphere and atmosphere with emphasis on the biochemical and biophysical processes that control gas exchange. We have several projects on photosynthetic responses to carbon dioxide, emphasizing elevated carbon dioxide because this will continue to increase in the atmosphere.
http://www.bch.msu.edu/faculty/sharkey.htm
David Skole, Department of Forestry and Global Observatory for Ecosystem Services
The role of forests in the global carbon cycle, global biogeochemistry, global land use and land cover change, global climate change.
http://www.for.msu.edu/pages/faculty/skole_d.html
Julie Winkler, Department of Geography
Regional climate change, climate scenario development, impacts of climate variability and change in the Great Lakes region and North America, synoptic climatology, applied climatology.
http://www.msu.edu/~winkler/
http://pileus.msu.edu/about/people/teamprofiles.htm
Catherine Yansa, Department of Geography
Research involves reconstructing past environments of the Upper Midwest over the last 18,000 years by studying plant fossils (pollen, seeds, etc.) preserved in lake sediments. The objective of such paleoecological work is to document past responses of plants to climate changes, providing information useful for understanding potential responses of plants to predicted global warming.
http://www.geo.msu.edu/faculty/yansa.html
Jinhua Zhao, Department of Economics and Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics and Environmental Science and Policy Program
Natural resource and environmental economics, global climate change, energy economics, trade and environment, technology adoption, dynamic decision making, post-Kyoto policy.
https://www.msu.edu/~jzhao/
Sharon Zhong, Department of Geography
Regional climate change; mesoscale and boundary layer meteorology; air pollution meteorology; mountain meteorology.
http://www.geo.msu.edu/faculty/zhong.html
Leo Zulu, Department of Geography
Vulnerability and adaptation of rural communities in southern Africa to climate change.
http://www.geo.msu.edu/faculty/zulu.html
