People in the lab
Faculty
Chris Blackwood, Professor
Chris is broadly interested in understanding drivers of ecosystem processes in soil, and community assembly of plants and microbes. When not helping do fieldwork or teaching a class, Chris directs the Kent State Environmental Science and Design Initiative.
Office: 251F Integrated Sciences Bldg, Kent State University, Kent OH 44242
email: cblackwo@kent.edu
Graduate Students
Colleen Cosgrove, Ph.D. student
Colleen is interested in interactions at forest-forest ecotones. Currently, she is conducting projects on how tree communities, invertebrate communities, and decomposition rates change at ecotones compared to the core regions of ecosystems.
Anna Droz, Ph.D. student
Anna studies green roofs, with a focus on untangling the relationships between the organisms living in the soil, the overlying plant material, and the abiotic soil characteristics within these often heavily managed and constructed systems.
Andrew Eagar, Ph.D. student
Andrew studies plant-soil feedback effects in temperate hardwood forests. He is interested in how plant-soil feedback drives plant evolution, influences community composition, and affects ecosystem processes such as carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling.
Matt Gacura, Ph.D. student
Matt studies the mechanisms of saprotrophic fungal community assembly at both large and small scales. He is also interested in connecting these communities to their functional traits and related ecosystem processes. He is also currently teaching environmental science and microbiology classes.
Anthony Minerovic, Master's student
Anthony is researching mechanisms by which carbon from tree roots is sequestered in soils.
Tom Ruggles, Master's student
Tom is interested in forest restoration and plant invasion ecology. He is currently researching the effects of invasive autumn olive on soil properties and vegetative communities. Additionally, he is working on a forest restoration project on degraded former surface mines in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Undergraduate Students
Taylor Fulton, Biological Sciences
Taylor is a Biological Sciences major working on nutrient runoff from different types of soil and vegetation treatments in green infrastructure.
Jessica Nowjack, Biotechnology
Jessie is a Biotechnology major that has worked on a variety of projects using microscopy and molecular methods.
Ashley Sumpter, Biological Sciences
Ashley is a Biological Sciences major performing chemical and microbial analyses of soil and roots.