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Posted by Adriana Uscanga on Monday, March 20, 2023

About me

I am a landscape ecologist currently working as a Research Associate (Postdoc) at the Ecological Remote Sensing and Modeling Lab at Michigan State University. I earned my Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Oregon in 2022. My research focuses on understanding how ecosystems and historically marginalized human populations are affected by and respond to global change. I’m particularly interested in understanding the role of land use and management in shaping forest and agricultural landscapes, as well as the interactions between land-use/land-cover change and climate change. I’ve done most of my work in tropical mountains, although I’m currently exploring temperate forests of North America.

In my work I use an interdisciplinary research approach. I draw on theories from disciplines such as landscape ecology, global change biology, land system science, social-ecological systems, political ecology, and environmental justice, and use different quantitative and qualitative methods including geospatial and big data analyses, ecological modeling, and interviews. My research projects revolve around three main themes:

  • Land management effects on forest and agroecosystems
  • Forest disturbance trajectories and resilience to global environmental change
  • Global change and environmental justice in tropical mountains