I’m currently taking a course on scientific illustration of insects! Enjoy this cicada and bumble bee!

I was on the news! The experimental forest where I work in north MN (Anishinaabe land) was highlighted by Kare11 News. They visited me at my field sites! Quite a surprise! I feel very grateful and excited! The video/article focus on changes facing northern Minnesota under climate change. My field site is at the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) experiment, exploring different forest management strategies to support future forests. My own work centers on drought and stress responses, and whether these management strategies are helping to reduce seedling stress.

Check out the ASCC experiment, my sites and forest science at Kare11 News here: “Climate may change MN’s iconic north woods.”

Important context: 
1) The report/video emphasizes the “iconic MN northwoods” and fails to acknowledge that this is Indigenous Land and Aninisinaabe Land, specifically Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. When the reporter interviewed me, I told them this many times but it was not included. Please when you think of this area, its past and its future, remember that it is Indigenous Land and home since time immemorial to Native Nations. Climate change and forest management must acknowledge and respect Tribal sovereignty, wishes, knowledge, and goals (which is also the aim of my work).
2) The report frames the ASCC experiment from the angle of its most dramatic “transition” treatment. However, the goal of ASCC is to explore many possible directions for supporting future forests. The somewhat controversial idea of “assisted migration” is only one of four strategies being explored.
3) Please respect and care for the land. I have seen responses that deny climate change, and this continues to be saddening. To that, I will say that when asked why I do the work that I do, my reply is that I have a responsibility. So please, in what ways you can, remember your responsibility to this beautiful world.
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Hello all! I've been hard at work in the forest for most of the spring/summer thus far. So I am far behind in updating. But I am excited to say that last month I was highlighted by the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC), where I am a Graduate Fellow. Please take a look! Thank you so much!

Hi everyone! This week I gave a presentation of my PhD research for the Natural Resources Science and Management (NRSM) graduate student seminar here at the University of Minnesota. My research is based at the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) experiment located in northern Minnesota. ASCC is a national, collaborative effort with multiple study sites across the United States, focusing on adapting forests for climate change.

I am particularly interested in how these management treatments will respond to and interact with drought, especially from a seedling perspective. For example, will management strategies focused on resistance, resilience, and transition be effective in supporting our future forests if there is more severe drought? I am also looking at the effects of timing of drought and the lasting impacts of drought (legacies) across multiple seasons, and how management treatments interact with these questions. This work builds on some of the drought-related questions I pursued in my Masters, and looks at how drought impacts seedlings in a forest setting. My hope is that this work will help provide some real-world, on-the-ground answers for the future of our forests! 

It was recorded, and you can watch it the video below! I would love it if you gave it a look! Thank you!

P.S. My presentation also features some of my artwork. : ) 

Hi everyone! My updates have been regrettably sparse. But here's a look at what I am working on this summer! Fieldwork for my thesis research at the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change project, where I am hoping to study drought responses of Minnesota's tree species and adaptive management strategies for the future. Check out the University of Minnesota's Fieldwork Feature!

Just a little update that I started my PhD at the University of Minnesota this past fall (September 2017) in the Natural Resources Science and Management Program (NRSM). It was certainly a big move back to Minnesota from Oregon. You can read a bit more about me and my and other graduate students' work on the NRSM Fellows page, as well as on the Montgomery Lab webpage. I am also very excited to be a Northeast Climate Science Center Graduate Fellow, and you can read a bit about me there. I am sure I will have many new updates to follow. Thank you! 

I'm very glad to inform that a couple months past, on December 12th, I successfully defended my Master's degree. Then, in January I officially submitted my thesis and graduated! I am now in the process of sorting out the steps towards possibly beginning a PhD. For a little while, though, I will be taking some much needed time for rest.

In the meantime, please feel welcome to have a look at my thesis, available through the Oregon State University archives, titled: Physiological Responses of Loblolly Pine and Douglas-fir to Timing and Frequency of Drought Stress 

Thank you very much to all that have helped me along the way!

For many, the past weeks and months have been devastating. Depressing, discouraging, enraging. An emboldening of hateful preexisting realities and mentalities pervading this country. For me, over the past many months and over the years of my life, I have felt -- each and every day -- the rising of my heart in the back of my throat. A feeling of dread and despair for such pervasiveness, from the reality of hate.

Today I participated in one of many, many, many Women's Marches occurring across the United States and across the world. The march I attended was in a much smaller city. But I was very pleased to see an attendance estimated between 95-100 people (and overjoyed to see the estimated 2.9 million people nationally). The atmosphere was peaceful and open. Before marching and after marching, attendees stood along the sidewalk outside of the County Courthouse, holding their signs towards the cars driving past. There were many honks of support, peace-signs, friendly waves and nods. It was encouraging.

About 80% of what I observed from cars and bystanders was positive and supportive. To be expected, however, there were a few pro-trump calls. This did not surprise, or particularly phase me. One did incident did.

"Be nice, be nice, be nice" one woman chided in warning from a passing car. She sat in the passenger seat, window rolled down and in the nearest lane to us as the car slowed ever-so-much while driving past. She ended with something along the lines of "trump" or "trump won", or other such intone of his name. She did not shout, but it was clear she wanted it to be heard. The meaning was clear too.

 I am writing on the eve of the inauguration of a man who, like many wealthy white men before him, has ridden to power on the backs of the oppressed. I am writing as our Nation's most ugly, corrupt, and unjust legacies embody themselves corporeally, and take an open and unabashed seat of overt leadership. Again and again, I have contemplated what this means for a country.

None of the rhetoric that the president-elect soon-to-be president espouses is new, novel, unique, or surprising, although it is not normal and should never be normal. It is, however, ​business as usual, based on the United State's track-record. Just a bit more in-your-face. His mentalities and platforms are very firmly grounded in the inheritance of genocide, rape, theft, slavery, and entitlement that form the foundation of the United States.  One look at our history should inform you of this. Indeed, you may already be aware of this if you pay one ounce of attention to the experiences of your fellow humans or if you are someone who experiences oppression. (1)

Those beloved founding fathers? I find most of them abhorrent in their treatment of those who did not possess a y-chromosome and did not have their same pale complexion. So, given all of that, this outcome is not shocking. If you are shocked, you need to educate yourself. It is, however, painful. Frankly, I have never expected much of anything from the White people of this country, very little from men, and much less from the wealthy. And least of all from the wealthy White man. It is a lot to expect, after all, that someone might inherently possess the qualities of human decency, empathy, and respect for life. (2) ​

Perhaps you can sense my exasperation.  But in that exasperation, what I keep coming back to is this: in the test of a nation, we have failed. Many times over.