Fall, 2022
Principal Investigator
Dr. Chaoqun (Crystal) Lu
Chaoqun is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Organismal Biology at ISU. She is a quantitative ecosystem ecologist, with a research focus on understanding and quantifying the complex ecosystem processes in response to climate change, land use and cover change, and human management across scales. Her primary area of interest includes estimation of terrestrial carbon sequestration, land-to-atmosphere greenhouse gas emissions, and land-to-aquatic nutrient movements by using land surface models, and data-model assimilation approach. Prior to joining ISU, she was a Research Fellow at Auburn University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Chinese Academy of Sciences and got postdoctoral training at Auburn University.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Peiyu Cao
(pycao[at]iastate.edu)
Peiyu obtained his Ph.D. degree in Environmental Sciences at ISU in 2022. His research interest includes understanding and modeling nitrogen flows in the land-atmosphere-aquatic interface across scales. His current projects use data synthesis and modeling approach to quantify agricultural nitrogen flows from input to hydrological and gaseous losses in the U.S.
PhD student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Bo Yi
(boyi[at]iastate.edu)
Bo is a Ph.D. student in the program of EEB at ISU. He received his Master's degree in soil science from Zhejiang University, China. His current research work seeks to represent lignin decomposition and belowground carbon cycling in models. His projects integrate a large volume of lab incubation and field measurement data from NEON soil samples and long-term observation sites to improve a mechanistic ecosystem model.
PhD student, Environmental Sciences
Shuchao Ye
(ysc[at]iastate.edu)
Shuchao is a Ph.D. student in the program of Environmental Science at ISU. He received his Master’s degree in surveying and mapping from Central South University, China. His research interests include quantifying the impacts of land use and cover change, such as cropland expansion and CRP land enrollment, on the terrestrial carbon cycling and predicting the carbon sequestration potentials under conservation practices.
Master student, Environmental Sciences
Ignacio Calderon
(ignacioc[at]iastate.edu)
Ignacio is an Environmental Science MS student at ISU. After graduating with a Photojournalism BA from Columbia College Chicago in 2020, he worked as a data journalist through a USA Today Fellowship. During that time, he reported on the intersection between climate change and agriculture. His research interests include how different land uses affect water quality in local communities and downstream ecosystems and how extreme weather events affect this dynamic.
Visiting student
Yan Zhang
(yanzhang[at]iastate.edu)
Yan is a Ph.D. candidate in soil science at the Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University, China. Her research focus is mainly on evapotranspiration in surface energy balance systems and hydrological cycles. In her current research project, she uses remote sensing and ecosystem modeling approaches to estimate the dynamics and patterns of evapotranspiration in croplands.
Lab Alumni
Jien Zhang, Postdoctoral researcher (2018-2022), now a quantitative associate at J.P. Morgan
Zhen Yu, Postdoctoral researcher (2016-2019), now a professor at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, China
Alina Lu, Undergraduate Researcher (2017-2018), now a DMD student at Penn Dental Medicine
Avani Khadilkar, Graduate student (2017-2020), now a Bioinformatics Systems Analyst in the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute
Geunhu Kim, Graduate student (2019-2020), now in South Korea
