Two faculty have joined the School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) this semester.
Dr. Allison Rober
We are pleased to welcome Associate Professor and Assistant Director of SENR for Stone Lab Academic Programming Dr. Allison Rober.
Dr. Rober, an aquatic microbial ecologist whose research is primarily conducted in wetlands seeks to understand the relationship between algal community composition and water quality and ecosystem function. Dr. Rober’s research contributes to an understanding of how processes related to climate change and environmental perturbations influence the structure and function of aquatic microbial communities, including the occurrence of toxin-producing cyanobacteria within agriculturally dominated watersheds. Dr. Rober is currently the lead Principal Investigator on several National Science Foundation funded projects, as well as a Department of Energy funded project to identify the functional traits of the biofilm microbiome to understand changes in microbiome structure and function to peatland carbon dioxide emissions.
Dr. Kevin Wyatt
We are pleased to welcome Professor Kevin Wyatt, who leads the Microbial & Ecosystem Ecology Lab and whose research integrates microbiology and ecosystem ecology to gain a holistic understanding of aquatic ecosystems.
Dr. Wyatt’s current research investigates the complex interactions of primary producers (algae) and decomposers (heterotrophic bacteria and fungi) and the consequences of these interactions for ecosystem processes such as energy flow and carbon emissions from aquatic environments. His research has been published in the Journal of Ecology, Freshwater Biology and Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. Dr. Wyatt is an active mentor of student research – guiding students in and outside of the classroom through the scientific method and promoting the collaborative and creative nature of scientific research.