Cohort Level: Cohort - II

Career Goal: I want to work at a government facility, contributing to the monitoring of climate change and help to make more accurate weather predictions. Specifically, I would like to work with the management of ecosystems after a fire, and the effects of this at a local scale.

Expected Graduation Date: February 1, 2022

Degree: M.S Ecology

Research Title: Assessing soil CO2 effluxes in semiarid chaparral shrublands

Research Synopsis: Soil respiration (Rsoil) is the second largest carbon dioxide (CO2) flux in terrestrial ecosystems and it is important in estimating future effects of climate change. Considering semiarid shrublands are significant sinks of CO2, we will study the effects of vegetation microsites, soil temperature, and rainfall events on Rsoil in a chaparral ecosystem in Southern California.