William "Buzz" Nanavati

Email: wnanavati@pdx.edu

My research interests focus on paleoecology and the nonlinear and interacting relationships between humans, climate, and the environment through time. My overarching goal is to better understand how humans and climate have influenced past vegetation and fire dynamics and how these interactions have varied at different spatial and temporal scales. My research areas, so far, include the forest-steppe border of Patagonia, western Cascades, central Ozarks, and Andean highlands of Peru. I rely on the rich record of paleoenvironmental information preserved in lake sediments, in particular fossil pollen, charcoal, plant remains, and geochemistry. These records document millennia of change in climate and human history, and with high-resolution analyses, I have been able to reconstruct fine-scale vegetation and fire patterns at time scales of decades. To accomplish my research objectives, I work in collaborative projects to compare these data with dynamic vegetation models and archaeological, dendroecological, and historical records.

For a better idea of my research and fieldwork, please see this video, produced by the School of Film and Photography at Montana State University, during my Ph.D. research with Prof. Cathy Whitlock.

My current research is funded by the National Science Foundation-SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (SPRF-FR 2004941) and I am a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar in the Global Environmental Change Lab, Department of Geography, Portland State University.

Degrees:

Ph.D., Ecology and Environmental Sciences – Montana State University (2020)

M.A., Anthropology, Archaeology Focus – Washington State University (2014)

B.S., Anthropology, B.A. Spanish – Southern Methodist University (2011)