Background
The CALS Roadmap to 2050 identified five Transdisciplinary Moonshots – opportunities for the CALS community to collaborate on future-focused, cross-disciplinary scientific breakthroughs and to align research, education, and extension programs for greater impact and stronger connectivity. The Moonshot areas were designed to build upon core strengths in CALS, spanning the agricultural, life, environmental and social sciences, with the goal of recruiting 27 faculty into the college over the next three years. The Empowering Biodiversity cohort will advance the CALS Transdisciplinary Moonshot in Pioneering Life Science Breakthroughs.
Research in the Empowering Biodiversity cohort will be guided by ecological and evolutionary relationships and the documentation of patterns and processes that drive organismal success and decline. The ideal candidate will engage in Plant Biodiversity research that builds on historic and living collections and field research to directly address the biodiversity crisis at global and/or local scales. In addition to this hire in SIPS, the Empowering Biodiversity cohort includes new faculty positions in Population biology and the genomic architecture of species success (Computational Biology), Biodiversity Informatics (Department of Natural Resources and the Environment), Insect Biodiversity and Conservation (Entomology), and the Economics of Biodiversity (Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management) within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Position details
- Teaching (40%) – The successful candidate will potentially contribute to teaching an undergraduate course in Plant Systematics and have opportunities to develop undergraduate or graduate courses in their area of expertise. In particular, we are looking for a faculty member interested in developing field courses that make use of Cornell’s nature reserve system using inclusive and culturally relevant/place-based pedagogy.
- Research (60%) – Outstanding research scholarship is expected, as the successful candidate will lead an internationally recognized research program to leverage plant biodiversity and employ state-of-the-art approaches to understand fundamental mechanisms of convergent evolution and adaptation as a means of addressing the biodiversity crisis. Expected to maintain a well-funded research program. Excellence in and commitment to development of multidisciplinary team-based research and training programs is essential.
Search committee
- Chelsea Specht (chair)
- Jeff Doyle
- Alejandra Gandolfo
- Fay-Wei Li (BTI, Plant Bio Adjunct)
- Christopher Dunn (Director, Cornell Botanic Gardens)
- Swanne Gordon (EEB)
- Rob Raguso (NBB, Plant Bio Graduate Field)
- Josh Felton (Grad Rep, full member)
Candidate: Isaac Lichter-Marck, California Academy of Sciences
Research Talk: Origins and evolution of plant diversity in novel environments: an integrative approach
Isaac Lichter-Marck, California Academy of Sciences
School of Integrative Plant Science
Monday, January 22, 12:20 – 1:10 pm, 404 Plant Science & by Zoom
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Isaac Lichter-Marck is currently an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow with California Academy of Sciences. His background includes:
- Masters/Hughes Fellow in Evolutionary Ecology: Wesleyan University
- PhD 2021: University of California, Berkeley (Bruce Baldwin)
- UCLA Postdoc, NSF funded: (Felipe Zapata)
- NSF PRF: (Sarah Jacobs, Rosita Scherson)
He is an evolutionary biologist working at the intersection of ecology, biogeography, phylogenomics and systematics, with emphasis on holistic understanding of biodiversity using specimen-based studies enriched by whole-genome scale sequencing and bioinformatic approaches. He is interested in the origin and evolution of plant diversity in novel or extreme habitats, including deserts and oceanic islands and has a strong teaching record for field courses: Full time professor in Environmental systems and Theory of Knowledge, Colegio del Mundo Unido Costa Rica; ecosystems of California; introductory botany field section. He has published in PNAS, Systematic Botany, Systematic Biology, Journal of Systematics and Evolution, Ecology and Evolution, Oikos, Ecology
Candidate: Hannah Marx, University of New Mexico
Research Talk: Disentangling drivers of floristic diversity on sky islands: from phylogenetics to functional genomics
Hannah Marx, University of New Mexico
School of Integrative Plant Science
Wednesday, January 24, 12:20 – 1:10 pm, 404 Plant Science & by Zoom
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Hannah Marx is an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico. Her background includes:
- PhD 2016: University of Idaho (David Tank)
- Postdoctoral Fellow: University of Michigan (Stephen Smith & Chris Dick)
- Postdoctoral Fellow: University of Arizona (Mike Barker, K. Dlugosch)
She is interested in understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that drive community assembly across spatial and temporal scales, integrating historical and novel plant collections, biodiversity informatics, and advances in genomics to address community diversity on alpine sky islands, invasion dymanics on oceanic islands, plant phylogenetics, systematics, and population genetics. She has published in Journal of Applied Ecology, Ecology, Systematic Biology, American Journal of Botany, Journal of Biogeography and is interested in teaching on Flora of NY; Biodiversity Informatics; Field-based Plant Form and Function; Place-based Plants & People
Candidate: Ana Maria Bedoya, Louisiana State University
Research Talk: Novel perspectives on the evolution of the world’s richest flora: insights from extreme botany
Ana Maria Bedoya, Louisiana State University
School of Integrative Plant Science
Monday, January 29, 12:20 – 1:10 pm, 404 Plant Science & by Zoom
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Ana Maria Bedoya is a postdoctoral researcher at Louisiana State University. Her background includes:
- PhD 2021: University of Washington, Seattle (Dick Omstead)
- LSU postdoc: (Laura Lagomarsino)
She is a plant biologist investigating how the world’s richest flora was and continues to be shaped by geological and climatic history with a focus on aquatic plants: developing river plants as a model system to study evolution in nature and in action and translating knowledge into practical solutions to the climate crisis and conservation of freshwater ecosystems. She has published in Systematic Biology, Applications in Plant Sciences, TAXON, American Journal of Botany, Frontiers in plant science, Phytotaxa, Science (under review) and has teaching interests in plant systematics, Plant evolution and the fossil record, plant morphology and anatomy; geogenomics; Field observations to theory
Candidate: Daniel Anstett, Michigan State University
Research Talk: TBA: candidate works on adaptation across climate gradients
Daniel Anstett, Michigan State University
School of Integrative Plant Science
Monday, February 5, 12:20 – 1:10 pm, 404 Plant Science & by Zoom
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Daniel Anstett is a Plant Resilience Institute postdoctoral research fellow at Michigan State University. His background includes:
- PhD 2017: University of Toronto (Marc Johnson)
- NSERC postdoc fellow UBC (Amy Angert, Loren Rieseberg)
- PRI MSU (David Lowry, Will Wetzel)
He is an evolutionary geneticist who studies how organisms adapt across climatic gradients and in response to climate change, rapid evolution at phenotypic and genomic levels & impacts on population demography, abiotic environment impacts interactions between insect herbivores and host plants, from populations to broad phylogenetic scales and is interested in linking evolutionary ecology with genomics and analytical chemistry to understand the contemporary evolution of physiologically relevant traits; allows for characterizing for when and where plants have the capacity to evolve to the Anthropocene. He has published in Science, Nature Communications, Evolution, TREE, Ecology, Journal of Chemical Ecology, New Phytologist, and his teaching interests are in ecology and evolution of plants; biology of climate change; Field course using area reserves