Graduate Students:
As of September 2026, currently none 😦
I just returned from a Rotating Program Director position at NSF, and am interested in re-building my lab. Contact me if interested.
Undergraduate Students:
Currently none.
Former lab members:
Lauren Tucker, Ph.D. 2026
Lauren studied long-term water storage in trees and its importance for whole tree water relations, applying novel in situ tracer techniques to address age-old questions in tree ecophysiology and ecohydrology.
Spencer Roop Clemons, Ph.D. 2024
Spencer’s dissertation focused on the physiological differences in big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), and linking phenotypic variation to genotypic variation. Her work was funded in part by the NSF EPSCoR GEM3 project (https://www.idahogem3.org/). Dr. Clemons is now a high school biology teacher.
Mikaela Maneely, M.S. 2023
Mikaela studied the residence time and transit velocity of tracer in trees. She is now a college-level Lecturer in Anatomy & Physiology.
Abbi Chadbourn, M.S. 2020
Abbi studied the impacts of balsam woolly adelgid on subalpine fir trees in Idaho and Utah. She quantified how the degree of infestation altered whole tree water relations. She is now working in Minnesota.
Dayne Lubenow, M.S. 2019
Dayne studied the variation in forest “greenness” (NDVI) with wintersnow snowpack metrics throughout the northern Intermountain West. He was interested in what environmental driver variables are related forest productivity in patchy forests in the topographically complex terrain that characterizes our region. He is now employed by a private environmental consulting firm doing remote sensing work in Montana.
Harmandeep Sharma, Ph.D. 2019
Harman studied carbon and water fluxes in three species and sub-species of sagebrush along an elevation gradient at the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory (http://criticalzone.org/reynolds/). Dr. Sharma is now a Research Assistant Professor at North Carolina A&T University.
Steven Augustine, M.S. 2018
Steven studied causes of seedling mortality in first-year lodegepole and ponderosa pine seedlings during drought. He was interested in basic questions in conifer seedling biology such as what is the carbon balance of first-year seedlings. After ISU, he obtained his PhD at the University of Wisconsin in Kate McCulloh’s lab, and did a post doc in Jeannine Cavender-Barres lab at the University of Minnesota/Harvard. Dr. Augustine is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Arkansas.
Theresa Condo, M.S. 2017
Theresa quantified intra-specific variation in hydraulic function traits along an elevation gradient in Douglas fir trees. She was interested in elucidating what abiotic factors cause lower treeline in montane forests in western U.S. She is now working as a Field Biologist for the USFS in Tucson, AZ.
Maria Pacioretty, M.S. 2016
Maria investigated the impacts of human-noise on ecosystem functioning in the Phantom Gas Field project, She is now working as a regional biologist for ID Department of Fish and Game.
Lindsay Curran, M.S. 2015
Lindsay’s thesis research investigated physiological and structural adjustments in sagebrush, under both current and future climate scenarios. She is now working as a research pathologist for a nursery supply company in Massachusetts.
Kate McAbee, M.S. 2015
Kate investigated the effects of altered precipitation seasonality on net ecosystem carbon exchange in Intermountain sagebrush steppe. She now is living in Boise, ID and is an Academic Advisor/Lead Architect for an educational software company.
Ike Brown, NSF EPSCoR funded research technician
Ike completed a BS in Biology at Idaho State University. As a research technician in the Reinhardt lab, he enjoyed increasing his knowledge of plants and studying insect herbivory at the University of Idaho’s Taylor Wilderness Research Station in the Frank Church Wilderness. He is now employed at Idaho BioScience in Hailey, ID.
Cristie Cole, NSF EPSCoR REU Summer 2013. Cris was a hiker-extraordinaire during summer 2013, where she investigated how experimental snowpack manipulations affected the physiology of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) at leaf to whole-tree scales. She hiked into Gibson Jack RNA weekly with tons of equipment, and fought off moose, stinging nettle, and poison ivy for the sake of science. Hometown: Idaho Falls, ID.
