Research

My research focuses on how species respond to a changing climate and how scientists and conservationists can help biodiversity adapt to future climate.

I conduct fieldwork mainly in the biodiversity hotspot of the California Floristic Province on keystone oak tree species that occur nowhere else in the world and are increasingly threatened by drought . My work, in collaboration with land managers and conservation organizations, is exploring new ways to help these extraordinary organisms adapt to new climates, including identifying pockets of climate change refugia that could support these oaks into the future, and developing dispersed living oak field gene banks in which private land owners steward a critical genetic repository for threatened populations.