Conservation and Ecology Work

During my time in the School of Environment and Sustainability, I have embraced the opportunity to expand my skillset and knowledge base in all things relating to sustainability. One this page, you'll find some of my work using software such as ArcGIS, MatLab, R Studio, Adobe Creative Cloud Apps, and Canva. I have done work evaluating industry and national policy plans; in depth soil analysis; carbon storage research; and writing a children's' book.

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One of my first projects using ArcGIS involved mapping out the Population, Roads, and Land Use of Washtenaw County, MI. For this project, I practiced utilizing color, hue, and value to best represent my intended variables. I also evaluated the different classification methods available to best decide how to represent the population data. I chose to use the Natural Breaks method with 5 classes because this was the best visually representative method for the given data.

ArcGIS: Mapping Washtenaw County Population, Roads, and Land Use

An analysis and comparison of Northern Hardwood Ecosystem soil and Jack Pine ecosystem soil with Manistee, MI.

This paper analyses the differences in soil qualities for two ecosystems found in the Huron-Manistee National Park, in Wellston, Michigan. The Jack Pine (JP) ecosystem is located in a flat stretch of land, farther from Lake Michigan whereas the Northern Hardwood (NH) ecosystem is hilly and is directly exposed to conditions from Lake Michigan. This paper will explore the reasons for these two differing ecosystems to exist so close in geography. I will combine field observations with laboratory results to understand the full picture of these ecosystems. In the field, we collected data about the soil horizons, tree species diversity, and orientation in the environment. We used multiple laboratory procedures to measure physical, chemical, and biographical properties.

Both ecosystems were found to be loamy sand and were formed from the same parent material. The Northern Hardwood ecosystem had a higher pH, bulk density, percent organic matter, CEC, base saturation, microbial biomass, net N mineralization, rate of microbial respiration, and net nitrification. The Jack Pine ecosystem had a higher AWC. Fire disturbances were found to be the most influential factor in the differences between these two ecosystems, which in itself was influenced by glacially-determined topography.

Research on the Effect of Forest Age on Carbon Storage

25% of the world’s greenhouse gas production can be attributed to deforestation alone (Bennet) and there are still some points of discussion amongst scientists about whether new growth or old growth forests store more carbon. We decided to conduct a study to answer that question. If the size of a tree is more important for carbon storage than the number of trees because volume to diameter ratio decreases as a tree grows in size, and volume is correlated to total mass of carbon stored, then there will be more total carbon stored in old forests with large trees than younger forests with many small trees. At Scio Woods Forest in Ann Arbor, MI, we measured 10 3mx10m plots each of young forest and old forest. We collected the species and diameter at breast height of each tree taller than 6ft in order to ultimately calculate carbon storage of young and old forests. Our results support our hypothesis that older, established forests will have more stored carbon than younger forests. This indicates the importance of conserving established forests over prioritizing new growth when considering total carbon storage. Additional studies analyzing the net effects of forest conversion to tree species with high carbon sequestration rates could provide a more nuanced understanding of the relative carbon storage benefits of older established forests compared to younger forests with higher growth rates.

Internal Presentation on Tree Biology and Evolution for Green Cross

While working with Green Cross, I was a key member of the Education Team. In this role, I led multiple educational presentations for our sales and technician team members. These presentations were also used for onboarding processes, to assist new team members on being ready for the job. This presentation was on Tree Biology, with a special focus on Evolution of Oak Trees, and lasted approximately 2 hours long.

Analysis of Farm to Table Restaurants and Sustainability

Farm to table describes restaurants who source their ingredients locally and directly from the farmer. While this phrase is used somewhat loosely in the restaurant industry, I have chosen to use this definition as a basis for my project. During the last two and a half months, I prioritized farm to table restaurants when not cooking at home. I frequented farm to table restaurants roughly every two weeks, often bringing a companion to discuss localization topics during our meal. This experience gave me detailed insights into how restaurants label themselves ‘farm to table’ and how we, as a society, can better improve this industry during the transition.

Farm to table will become the norm by the end of the energy descent scenario one way or another. However, there are steps that can be taken so that the transition from chain restaurants to farm to table is inclusive and painless. Barriers to inclusion of farm to table restaurants include their searchability, convenience, affordability, and availability. In this paper, I break the issues down by barrier and suggest local and national solutions for making the farm to table lifestyle inclusive for all groups of people.

A policy analysis of Biden's Climate Action Plan in April 2021

This paper gives an industry by industry based analysis of Biden's Climate Action Plan, as it stood in April of 2021. Durnig my analysis, I found that overall, the Biden Administration created a sound, robust plan to mitigate climate change and prevent global temperatures warming over 1.5 degrees if immediate action is taken on all fronts and future plants are as aggressive if not more aggressive during the next 50 years. There are, or course, areas of improvement in each sector covered within this report needing to be addressed due to the US’s delayed response to climate change. Biden’s plans may have been enough if they had started 10 years ago and were in full effect now, but we are working with an even more demanding timeline as we slip into scenario SSP25. Change must occur as soon as possible, as effectively as possible, and as aggressively as possible in the coming years.

A Seminar on Global Climate Change and Species Extinction

I gave a seminar talk on Global Climate Change and Species Extinction for the Conservation Biology and Ecosystem Health class at the School for Environment and Sustainability at UMICH. This talk covered the major components of climate change and their consequences on all aspects of biodiversity. I covered the possible responses that species can take in regards to their changing environment, and also which ecosystems are most vulnerable these changes.

A Presentation on Policies for Reducing Emissions from the US Air Transportation Industry

In this presentation, I evaluate five different policies that can be implemented in order to reduce emissions from the US air transportation industry, with the goal of meeting emission targets set by the Paris Agreement and IPCC Guidelines. Each policy option had it's own strengths and weaknesses, and so I end with a recommendation that implementing many different policies at the same time will be the most successful option for reaching these goals.

An Input-Output Analysis of Air Travel Consumption using MatLab

In this presentation, I use an Input-Output analysis to compare Air Travel Consumption within the US and Europe using data from the World Input-Output Database. We used MatLab to sort and analyze this data. We broke this analysis up into four research questions:

What are the differential trends in gross household consumption and per capita household consumption of air travel in the United States and Europe?
What are the differential trends in gross greenhouse gas emissions and per capita greenhouse gas emissions related to air travel in the United States and Europe?
What factors could be related to these differential trends?
What actions can be taken to mitigate the emissions of both air travel industries?

The Land We Live On: A Children's Book on Land Acknowledgements

I wrote with book in conjunction with taking the course Indigenous People in Climate Justice with Kyle White, who is also a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council with President Biden. Writing this book challenged me to confront and communicate about my own privilege. The book is intended to be used in K103 classrooms, along with relevant content about local history. My hope is that students and teachers will get as much out of reading and discussing the book as I did while writing it.