Research Staff
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Dr. Michael S. Ross Dr. Ross's general research interests are in the area of environmental controls on plant community composition and structure, the involvement of these controls in the successional process, and the implications of successional development on restoration efforts. His approach often incorporates large-scale field manipulations with pattern analysis based on "natural experiments", usually arrayed along well-defined environmental gradients. His background and expertise is largely in forests of the southern Appalachians, the Lake states, boreal central Alberta, and the tropical Florida Keys. The challenge in developing successional models for such forested ecosystems is to incorporate interactions within and among spatially-variable, size-structured populations. Presently, the majority of his research has been directed toward restoration of the mixture of forested and herbaceous coastal wetlands of mainland south Florida. |
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Dr. Jay P. Sah Research Professor Curriculum vitae sahj@fiu.edu Dr. Sah has been a central member of the Terrestrial Ecology Research team since the early months of his doctoral program in 1996, when he became involved as a Graduate Research Assistant. Currently, he is Research Professor, and his research focuses on ecosystem processes and their management implications in the seasonal wetlands in Everglades, coastal wetlands of the Southeast Saline Everglades, and the tropical and sub-tropical upland forests of the Miami Rock Ridge and adjacent islands in South Florida. Dr. Sah’s expertise is in studying vegetation-environment relationships and effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbances on pattern and processes in various types of plant communities, including upland forests and floodplains, wet prairies, marshes and other seasonal wetlands. His research approach includes the use of multivariate statistical techniques to interpret relationships among vegetation and environmental variables in large data sets, spatial integration of the analytical results via extensive GIS databases, and system dynamics modeling. He is also involved in inter-disciplinary research on socio-economic issues, conservation, and natural resource management in Nepal. |
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Susana L. Stoffella Susana has worked on surveys of temperate and subtropical grasslands in her native country: Argentina. Conscious of the importance of multivariate techniques as tools to analyze vegetation data she has devoted many years of her research life to their study and application. Her research interests also have focused on vegetation-environment relationships and the effect of disturbances on grasslands, specially grazing. On the latter, she has worked on the effect of sheep grazing on the community dominated by a common Patagonian shrub. She is also interested in the link between plant functional traits at the ecophysiological level and community dynamics to better understand vegetation controls on ecosystem processes. She joined the group in 2004 and began analyzing data on the effect of fire on the herb layer of South Florida Pine Rocklands. She was involved from the very beginning in the Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape Assessment (LILA) experiment at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge when tree seedlings were planted on built tree islands in 2006 and have continued since then monitoring trees. Also, she helps in other activities related to projects conducted by the team. |
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Santiago Castaneda Santiago started working as full-time Lab Technician since Fall 2019. Prior to that, Santiago worked part-time for SOFTEL as a Student Research Technician between March 2017 and August 2019. Santiago graduated from FIU in Summer 2019 with a B.S. in Environmental Studies. His interest are marine ecosystems and coffee. |
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Juliana Alvarez Juliana has worked for SOFTEL as a Lab Technician since December 2023. Before joining as a full-time Lab technician, Juliana worked first as an intern and then as a Student Lab Techician. She completed her B.S. in Environmental Studies and B.A. in Sustainability & the Environment from FIU in Fall 2023. In addition, she has completed Undergraduate Certificates in Professional & Public Writing and in Biodiversity Conservation and Management. Her interests are community ecology, avian ecology, and conservation research applicable to management and/or restoration goals. |
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Bianca Constant Bianca is currently working for SOFTEL as Student Lab Technician. She joined SOFTEL as an Intern in Nov 2018 and worked as an intern until Dec 2019. After that she began working as a part-time Lab Tehcnician, she transitioned to full time technician in 2021 and worked for two years. Since 2023 Fall, she has begun Porfessional Science Master's in Environmental Policy and Management. Her interest is in plant ecology and natural resouce conservation and management. |
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Sophie Ramos Sophie Ramos is working for SOFTEL as a part-time Student Lab Technician since November 2023. |
Previous Personnel
| Erica Garcia | Myranda Hernandez | |
| Christian Prieto | Josue Sandoval | Allison Jirout |
| Jesus Blanco | Nate Colbert | Alexander Martinez-Held |
| Junnio Frexia | Zenia Bravo | Rachel King |
| Allison Lambert | Jessica Heinrich | Lawrence Lopez |
| Diana Rodriguez | Jennifer Lopez | Alexandra Saldana |
| Adam Spitzig | Pablo Ruiz | David Trujillo |
SOFTEL Collaborators
| Dr. Evelyn Gaiser | Professor, Bilogical Sciences | Department of Biology and Southeast Environmental Research Center, Florida International University | gaisere@fiu.edu | Dr. Krish Jayachandran "Dr. Jay" | Professor, Environmental Studies | Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International Unviersity | jayachan@fiu.edu |
| Dr. John (Jack) Meeder | Professor Emeritus | Institute of Environment, Floria International University | |
| Dr. Steve Oberbauer | Professor, Biological Sciences | Department of Biology, Florida International University | oberbaue@fiu.edu |
| Dr. Joe O’Brien | Research Ecologist | USDA—Forest Service, Athens, GA | jjobrien@fs.fed.us |
| Dr. Rene Price | Professor, Department of Earth and Environment | Department of Earth and Environment, and Institute of Environment, Florida International Unviersity | pricer@fiu.edu |
| Dr. Len Scinto | Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, and Head of Department, Department of Earth and Environment | Department of Earth and Environment, and Institute of Environment, Florida International Unviersity | leonard.scinto@fiu.edu |
| Dr. Gail Hollander | Associate Professor, Global and Sociocultural Studies | Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University | hollande@fiu.edu |
| Dr. Jennifer Rehage | Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Environment | Department of Earth and Environment, and Institute of Environment, Florida International Unviersity | rehagej@fiu.edu |
| Pablo Ruiz | Biologist | South Florida Natural Resources Center, Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks | pablo_ruiz@nps.gov |
| Dr. Jed Redwine | Ecologist | Seminole Tribe of Florida | jedredwine@semtribe.com |
| Dr. Mary Carrington | Associate Professor, Department of Biology | Governor's State University | m.carrington@govst.edu |