| PEI has five
active research centers and groups, the Princeton Climate
Center (PCC), part of the Cooperative Institute for Climate
Science (CICS), the Center for Environmental Bioinorganic
Chemistry (CEBIC), the Center for Biocomplexity (CBC), the
Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI), and PEI’s Energy
Group. Each research center has research and technical staff
affiliated with it, many of whom have offices in PEI’s
space in Guyot Hall. Most of these scientists are exploring
one or more aspects of global climate change. Many
of the postdoctoral research associates who have recently
obtained their Ph.D.s and who are acquiring additional training
with PEI faculty, participate in the interdisciplinary PEI
Fellows Program. The fellows meet monthly to present their
research to each other and to discuss the challenges of
launching their careers. This is a unique opportunity for
these young scientists to forge ties across disciplines
with researchers and faculty from other departments and
programs who focus on environmental problems.
The research and technical staff members’
research interests follow. |
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Frederic Bartumeus received
his PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona (Spain)
in 2005. His dissertation was entitled " Lévy
processes in animal movement and dispersal". His background
is in limnology and theoretical ecology, mainly using complex
system approaches. His research interests are on the study
of animal movement and dispersal, at different scales and
based on different methodologies. Currently, Frederic is working
with Simon Levin at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology on the understanding of the origins and consequences
of intermittence and fractality in animal movement and dispersal.
The question is addressed from an evolutionary and ecological
perspective but based on statistical mechanics insights. New
linkages between search strategies, optimal foraging theory
and macroscopic diffusive properties of motion are expected. |
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Maciej Boni's research focuses on the public health
consequences of the evolution of infectious diseases. He has
studied antigenic drift in the influenza virus and the
evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, and his work
analyzes the fundamental mechanisms that drive these
processes so that policy can be formulated with some
knowledge as to its effects on the evolution of the disease
in question. In addition, Boni has contributed to the
statistical theory required for identifying recombinant
viruses and bacteria; recombinant pathogens are often
implicated in resistance evolution, virulence evolution, and
in the case of influenza, potentially pandemic strains. His
work has enabled the searching of large databases for
potentially novel and dangerous disease strains.
Boni currently works with Ramanan Laxminarayan (Resources
for the Future) and David L. Smith (University of Florida)
on the economic and ecological challenges to developing
effective malaria treatment strategies. He is a Resident
Scholar at Resources for the Future and has active
collaborations with researchers at Penn State's Center for
Infectious Disease Dynamics, the University of Chicago,
Queen's University (Ontario), the University of Vigo
(Spain), the Institute for Research and Development
(France), and the University of Queensland (Australia). |
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Nicolas Cassar
received his Ph.D. from the School of Ocean and Earth Science
and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawai‘i
in 2003. His dissertation was on the influence of carbon-concentrating
mechanisms and ß-carboxylation on marine photosynthetic
carbon isotope fractionation. He is currently working with
Michael Bender (Department of Geosciences) on atmospheric
oxygen. In conjunction with atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements,
O2/N2 can be used to better understand the global carbon cycle
and, more specifically, the mechanisms by which some of the
anthropogenic carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere
(land biosphere vs. ocean). |
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Ray Dybzinski (PEI) researches the mechanisms that
structure plant communities with methodological emphasis on
the interplay between quantitative mathematical theory and
observations/experiments. He is currently working with Dr.
Steve Pacala on an analytically tractable model of
nitrogen-and light-limited forest dynamics using the Pacala
lab's framework for modeling forest light competition. He
received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2007.
http://www.princeton.edu/~rdybzins |
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Stefan
Gerber received his PhD from the University of Bern
in Switzerland. He is working with Lars Hedin, EEB, and Michael
Oppenheimer, WWS on the implementation of a terrestrial Nitrogen
cycle in the GDFL's earth system model. The application of
such a model helps to address a variety of questions ranging
from nutrient limitation to the fate of anthropogenic emissions
of reactive nitrogen. |
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Ni-Zhang Golaz has worked
on various research projects, including Topical Ocean-Global
Atmosphere (TOGA) Program and conducted field work on
several international scientific research cruises; also
worked on atmospheric boundary layer meteorology and
atmospheric trace gases such as CH4, CO and CO2; is familiar
with both experimental work and computer modeling field.
Currently she is working with Steve Pacala on terrestrial
carbon cycle with a focus on the atmospheric CO2 fluxes and
concentrations. Research involves numerical modeling and
statistical data analysis.
http://www.princeton.edu/~ngolaz |
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Tom Kreutz’s
interests are in modeling advanced energy conversion
systems, in particular: production of hydrogen, electricity,
and CO2 (for sequestration) from coal, residential scale,
natural gas-fired PEM fuel cell cogeneration, fuel cell
hybrid vehicles: power system design and vehicle performance
modeling, reforming liquid fuels to hydrogen for mobile and
stationary power applications, gasification of biomass and
black liquor for combined cycle generation of electric
power, and fuel cells, gas turbines, and hybrid/combined
cycles for electric power generation.. |
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Adam Kustka received
his PhD. from SUNY Stony Brook in 2002. His dissertation was
entitled: Iron nutrition and metabolism in the marine diazotrophic
cyanobacterium, Trichodesmium spp. With Francois Morel, Geosciences,
he will be investigating the mechanisms of iron reduction
and uptake in marine phytoplankton. |
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Eric Larson is interested
in engineering and economic systems modeling of advanced
clean-energy technologies and processes for carbonaceous
fuels (biomass, coal, natural gas), especially for
addressing energy-related problems in developing countries.
His specific technology interests include gas turbines for
power generation, gasification of solid fuels, synthesis of
various clean fluid fuels, and fuel cells for
transportation. He is collaborating with Chinese colleagues
on analysis of syngas-based energy technologies and
strategies for low pollution and low greenhouse gas emission
energy futures for China. |
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Ramanan Laxminarayan's research deals with
the integration of epidemiological models of infectious
disease transmission and economic analysis of public health
problems. His work on 3resistance economics2 has focused on
improving the analysis of public health problems such as
bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and pest resistance to
genetically modified crops. He is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington DC. |
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Jinhu Lu received his PhD
in applied mathematics from Chinese Academy of Sciences in
2002. He is currently working with Simon Levin of the Department
of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. His research interests
include collective behaviors in animals, community structure
and information transfer in biological systems, biocomplexity
and biodiversity, complex dynamical networks, network dynamics,
and network structure. http://lsc.amss.ac.cn/~ljh |
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Sergey Malyshev's primary
research interest is the problems of interaction between the
surface and the atmosphere and its consequences for the climate
of the earth. He is especially interested in long-term variations
of the climate, how they are connected with long-term variations
of surface properties and what feedbacks are involved in the
process. Malyshev works with Prof. Steve Pacala in EEB. |
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Patrick McGinn completed
his Ph.D. in 2003 at the Australian National University in
Canberra. At ANU, he investigated certain molecular and physiological
aspects of the CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM) in model
freshwater cyanobacteria. His research has broadened in scope
and is now concerned primarily with deepening our understanding
of the potential consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2
on the activity and regulation CO2 and HCO3- assimilation
in diatoms and marine cyanobacteria, arguably the two most
important players in the marine carbon cycle. Under the direction
of Dr F. Morel, Patrick is currently applying detailed real-time
PCR approaches to explore the potential for CO2 limitation
and repletion to regulate the expression of genes involved
in a C4 mode of carbon acquisition in the model diatom Thalassiosira
pseudonana and other strains. This effort has been greatly
simplified with the recent publication of the entire genome
sequence for this organism (http://genome.jgi-psf.org/). |
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Yude Pan is
currently a senior research scientist with the Northern
Global Change Program of the U.S. Forest Service and
Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University. She
obtained degrees from Oceanography University of China
(Mathematics, BS), Graduate School of Chinese Academy of
Sciences (Quantitative Plant Ecology, MS), and State
University of New York at Syracuse (Plant Ecology, Ph.D.).
She was a post-doctoral scientist at the Ecosystem Center of
the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole before she
was hired by the U.S. Forest Service. She is a guest
lecturer for Biogeochemistry courses in the Department of
Earth and Environmental Science, University of Philadelphia,
and serves as a committee member and advisor for a Ph.D.
student and post-doc researcher of the Department.
http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/global/staff/ypan.html |
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Michael
Raghib received his PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Glasgow in 2006. His dissertation was entitled "Point Processes in Spatial Ecology". Michael is working with Simon Levin in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He is interested in stochastic models and their deterministic approximations for spatially and physiologically structured populations, problems of dispersal in individuals and collectives using methods from anomalous diffusion and fractional dynamics (with Yannis Kevrekidis ), and more recently bioinformatics and metagenomics (with J.Dushoff and J.Weitz).
http://www.princeton.edu/~mraghib/ |
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Elena Shevliakova's research
is focused on modeling biosphere-atmosphere interactions and
applications of such models to the issues of global environmental
change. Currently she is working with Steve Pacala on the
implementation of a dynamic land surface model for the GFDL-Princeton
Earth modeling system. This system will be used to address
a variety of questions such as analysis of impacts of climatic
change and anthropogenic land-use practices on the regional
distribution and dynamics of CO2 sources and sinks in different
regions of the world. |
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Roger Stern (CNES/PEI) is an economic geographer as
well as an energy and national security analyst. He holds
the PhD in Engineering from John Hopkins University. His
research concerns the national security consequences of US
believe in the 'oil weapon', which Stern asserts is largely
imaginary. |
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Robert Williams' energy
technology interests include fuel cells for transportation
and stationary power applications, advanced gas turbine
technologies for power generation, advanced technologies for
producing hydrogen and other clean synthetic fuels from
carbonaceous feedstocks, fuels decarbonization and CO2
sequestration, various renewable energy), and nuclear energy
(mainly proliferation and economic aspects). |
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Samir Succar received his MSE in Electrical
Engineering from Princeton University in 2003. He is currently
researching implementations of large-scale wind coupled to
energy storage as a strategy for enhancing transmission infrastructure
utilization and mitigating wind's variability. Other topics
include the competition of large-scale wind with other low-carbon
technologies such as coal IGCC with CCS under various climate
mitigation policy scenarios. |
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