{"id":44215,"date":"2016-06-06T16:38:48","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T23:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=44215"},"modified":"2016-06-08T13:50:57","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T20:50:57","slug":"catherine-gehring-elected-esa-fellow-outstanding-contributions-ecology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/catherine-gehring-elected-esa-fellow-outstanding-contributions-ecology\/","title":{"rendered":"Two NAU researchers elected as ESA fellows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two NAU professors have been elected as fellows of the Ecological Society of America:\u00a0Michelle Mack<\/strong> and Catherine “Kitty” Gehring.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNAU is extremely honored to have two new Ecological Society of America Fellows in Kitty Gehring and Michelle Mack,” said Bill Grabe<\/strong>, vice president for Research. “Both have made outstanding contributions to ecosystems science and both have raised considerably the profile of NAU as a leading center for environmental research.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mack is a professor of ecosystem ecology in\u00a0the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society. The fellowship is in recognition of her\u00a0seminal research contributions in plant ecology, spanning population to ecosystem science, including invasions, nutrient cycling, disturbance, and climate forcing, with emphasis on plant ecology in the arctic and boreal regions.\u00a0It also recognizes Mack\u2019s leadership in climate change and fire ecology, training future ecologists, and outstanding science communication and outreach to the public.<\/p>\n

\"Professor
Michelle Mack<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her work\u00a0has elucidated the ways in which the properties of individual plants influence the long-term dynamics of communities and ecosystems, particularly under circumstances of rapid change, due to climate change and to disturbances such as fire. Mack’s\u00a0research is recognized for being highly mechanistic, employing both observations and experiments, and for embracing the importance of dynamic change to understand the impact of plants on ecosystems\u0010.<\/p>\n

She has published more than\u00a0100 articles, many in the top journals, such as Science<\/em>, Nature<\/em>, Ecology\u00a0<\/em>and Ecosystems. <\/em>She has garnered more than\u00a0$30 million in collaborative funding since 2000, and has won numerous awards for her research, teaching and mentoring.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichelle Mack has a powerful intellect and is a natural synthesizer and leader and is a superb scientist, who contributes strongly to science, not only through her own research, but through her leadership in major scientific programs,” said F. Stuart Chapin III, professor with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. \u201cShe is among the top ecologists in the country\u201d, said Chapin, who is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and who supported Mack\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n

Mack has held many leadership positions in the field,\u00a0including\u00a0co-principal investigator of the Bonanza Creek Long-term Ecological Research program in Alaska,\u00a0member of the NASA science planning team for the ABoVE project<\/a>,\u00a0and board\u00a0member\u00a0of the Ecological Society of America as well as\u00a0the\u00a0Land Institute.<\/p>\n

Gehring, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University and member of the Merriam-Powell Center executive committee, also was elected as a fellow by the Ecological Society of America.<\/p>\n

\"Professor
Kitty Gehring<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The fellowship is in recognition of her outstanding contributions in the field of community genetics and the role of plant genetics in defining microbial communities.<\/p>\n

Gehring\u2019s research explores how host plant genetics influences fungal abundance and diversity; the impact of climate change on interactions between host plants, fungi and insects; and the below ground mechanisms by which invasive plants may harm native plants. She has more than 90 publications in premier journals including, Science<\/em>, Nature <\/em>and Ecology<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cKitty has been a pioneer in the field of community genetics, focusing on the role of plant genetics in defining microbial communities,\u201d said Regents\u2019 Professor Thomas Whitham<\/strong>, who jointly nominated Gehring for the fellowship with Regents\u2019 Professor Nancy Johnson<\/strong>. \u201cIn short, she has clearly become a scientific leader in these areas and in the training of many graduate students, a whole new generation of scientists are building upon her advances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gehring regularly teaches courses in ecology, mycology and biology. While at NAU, she has advised both graduate and undergraduate students, receiving the Outstanding Advisor Award from the Biology Graduate Student Association in 2012.<\/p>\n

In addition to her research and teaching activities, Gehring served as the co-chair for the Eighth International Conference on Mycorrhiza in 2015 and the director of the Genes-to-Environment IGERT Program, which offers a yearlong fellowship involving research and coursework to doctoral students and recently concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two NAU professors have been elected as fellows of the Ecological Society of America:\u00a0Michelle Mack and Catherine “Kitty” Gehring. \u201cNAU is extremely honored to have two new Ecological Society of America Fellows in Kitty Gehring and Michelle Mack,” said Bill Grabe, vice president for Research. “Both have made outstanding contributions to ecosystems science and both…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":44266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1493,1492,1497,1491,885,1298,38,24],"class_list":["post-44215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics","tag-biological-sciences","tag-ecological-society-of-america","tag-f-stuart-chapin-iii","tag-kitty-gehring","tag-merriam-powell-center-for-environmental-research","tag-michelle-mack","tag-nau","tag-northern-arizona-university"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}