Education

PhD, Ecology and Environmental Science, Montana State University

M.S., Earth Science, Montana State University

B.S., Environmental Science, magna cum laude, Columbia University 

B.M., Violin Performance, Juilliard School of Music

Research Interests

Fire-climate-vegetation interactions across the Northern Rocky Mountains

Publications

Alt, M., McWethy, D.B., Whitlock, C., 2025. Postglacial fire and vegetation histories of a mid-elevation mixed-conifer forest in the Gallatin Range, MT, USA. Quaternary Research, 127, 107-121.

Pederson, G., Stahle, D., McWethy, D.B., Toohey, M., Jungclaus, J., Lee, C., Martin, J., Alt, M., Kichas, N., Chellman, N., McConnell, J.R., Whitlock, C., 2024. Dynamic treeline and cryosphere response to pronounced mid-Holocene climatic variability in the US Rocky Mountains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(2). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2412162121

Alt, M., Puseman, K., Lee, C., Chellman, N., McConnell, J., Pederson, G., McWethy, D., 2024. Sediment layers preserved in ice patches: A new record of Holocene environmental change on the Beartooth Plateau, USA. Holocene, 34(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836231211877

Schiller, C.M., Alt, M., Nanavati, W.P., Wendt, J.A.F., Stahle, L.N., 2023. Getting Information from the Past: Palaeoecological Studies of Terrestrial Ecosystems. In: Clifford, N., Cope, M., Gillespie, T., French, S. (Eds), Key Methods in Geography, 4th ed. Sage Publications, pp. 393-418.

Schiller, C.M., Whitlock, C., Alt, M., Morgan, L.A., 2020. Vegetation responses to Quaternary volcanic and hydrothermal disturbances in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (USA): Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 559.

McWethy DB, Alt M, Argiriadis E, Battistel D, Everett R and Pederson GT (2020) Millennial-Scale Climate and Human Drivers of Environmental Change and Fire Activity in a Dry, Mixed-Conifer Forest of Northwestern Montana. Front. For. Glob. Change 3:44. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2020.00044

Alt, M., McWethy, D., Everett, R., & Whitlock, C. (2018). Millennial scale climate-fire-vegetation interactions in a mid-elevation mixed coniferous forest, Mission Range, northwestern Montana, USA. Quaternary Research,90(1), 66-82. doi:10.1017/qua.2018.25