Our Team
The Lab
Josh Lawler
Professor
Josh is the Orin and Althea Soest Professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, the Director of Nature & Health, and the Faculty Director of the UW Botanic Gardens at the University of Washington. He received his AB from Bowdoin College and his MS and PhD in ecology from Utah State University. Josh is a landscape ecologist and conservation biologist driven by applied conservation questions and their real-world applications. He is most interested in how anthropogenic factors affect species distributions, population dynamics, and community composition at regional and continental scales. His research involves investigating the effects of climate change on species distributions and populations, exploring the influence of landscape pattern on animal populations and communities, and climate-change adaptation for natural and human systems. Some of his current work has also begun to investigate the connection between time spent in nature and mental and physical health.
Aji John
Postdoctoral Researcher
Aji earned his PhD from Biology department at University of Washington, where he was co-advised by Janneke Hille Ris Lambers and Ka Yee Yeung. Aji explores microclimatic patterns in forest understories and studies phenology of wildflower meadows using high-resolution satellite imagery. His work in the lab currently focuses on identifying climatic refugia. His research is aided by a desire to develop open source instrumentation for environmental sensing and plant physiology. He also actively works in developing workflow solutions to analyze large datasets in Cloud.
Lety Santillana
MS Student
Lety is a Master's student in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. She earned her B.Sc. in Marine and Conservation Biology from Seattle University in 2019. Prior to joining the Landscape Ecology lab, she worked on endangered wildlife monitoring and conservation research, specifically with alpine birds, California condors, sea turtles and Mojave desert tortoises. Her current research focuses on using agent-based models to understand the effects of interacting stressors, such as climate change, habitat loss and fire, on at-risk species populations. Her research interests lie in wildlife conservation, traditional ecological knowledge, and how climate change disproportionately impacts marginalized communities and the wildlife and land they depend on.
Sarah Chase
PhD Student
Sarah Chase is a doctoral student co-advised by Josh Lawler and Stanley Asah. She holds a master’s degree in geography from San Diego State University, where her research focused on environmental attitudes and behaviors of natural resource monitoring volunteers. Before returning to graduate school, she worked for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on water quality management, as well as for an environmental nonprofit in Missouri. Her current research interests focus on the design and evaluation of interventions to promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. For her dissertation, she is evaluating the effectiveness of a mobile app designed to increase children's time in nature and their connectedness with nature.
Fern Crossway
MS Student
Fern is an MS student and Bridging the Gap fellow in the School of Environment and Forest Sciences (SEFS) at the University of Washington. Her thesis research involves evaluating how at-risk species respond to multiple, interacting stressors. Specifically, she is exploring how the Endangered Taylor's checkerspot butterfly will respond to continued shifts in habitat quality and quantity using spatially explicit, agent-based modeling. Fern’s research interests include endangered species conservation, habitat loss and fragmentation, and other anthropogenic threats to wildlife. She is interested in untangling multifaceted ecological problems and complex interactions between wildlife, their habitats, and humans. When not working with wildlife, she also dabbles in the realms of ecopsychology, ecofeminism, and the human-nature connection. Fern holds a B.S. in Conservation Biology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) and has conducted rare plant and wildlife monitoring and mark-recapture studies in the northeastern and western US.
Zihan (Lilac)
Hong
PhD Student
Lilac is a PhD student in Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management (QERM). Her interests lie in using quantitative methods to address both basic and applied ecological questions, with a particular focus on climate change, biodiversity, and conservation issues. Her current research in the Landscape Ecology and Conservation Lab centers on assessing species' vulnerability to climate change. Before joining UW, she earned her M.S. from Purdue University and her B.S. from Cornell University in Entomology, where she focused on integrated pest management of agricultural pests.
Chris Randels
Post-bac Researcher
Chris is a postbaccalaureate student interested in the intersections of climate change mitigation with urban land use and forest management. His undergradutate thesis examines inequities in climate impacts and access to services between higher and lower income Seattle neighborhoods across travel modes. Future research interests include the changes in forest ecosystems' responses to pathogens due to climate change, city residents' usage and responses to shared mobility services, and city infrastructure gaps that influence the effectiveness of shared mobility as a first/last mile solution. Outside of school, Chris is a member of Eastside environmental organizations seeking to reduce municipal carbon dioxide emissions through revisions in transportation and land use policy. Chris has a Bachelor of Science in Applied German Language and Intercultural Studies from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Lab Alumni
Alumnus Position in the lab Current Affiliation
Julia Michalak Postdoc/Research Scientist WA Dept. Fish and Wildlife
Yian Lin MS student University of British Columbia
Nameeta Prasad MS student Indian Government
Ben Dittbrenner PhD student Northeastern University
Caitlin Littlerfield PhD student University of Vermont
Catherine Means MS student US Forest Service
D. Scott Rinnan MS and PhD student Yale University
Rosemary Pazdral MS student US Forest Service
Aimee Fullerton PhD student NOAA
Michael Case PhD and Postdoc The Nature Conservancy, WA
Se-Yeun Lee PostDoc Seattle University
Maureen Ryan Postdoc Conservation Science Partners
Peter Singleton PhD student US Forest Service
Jenny McGuire Postdoc Georgia Tech
Jennifer Duggan Postdoc California State University, Monterey
Theresa Nogeire Postdoc Oregon State University
Julie Hienrichs Postdoc Colorado State University
Jessie Langdon MS student Weyerhaeuser
Christie Galitsky MS student Blue Ventures, Madagascar
Chad Wilsey PhD and Postdoc Audubon Society
Carrie Schloss MS student The Nature Conservancy, CA
John Withey Postdoc The Evergreen Sate College
Jorge Ramos MS student Stanford University
Tristan Nuñez MS student University of Wyoming
Aaron Ruesch MS student Wisconsin DNR
Lesley Jantarasami MS student US EPA
Evan Girvetz Postdoc CGIAR
Betsy Bancroft Postdoc Ganzaga University