Biography

My main area of research is terrestrial ecosystem modeling. Within this area my research topics of interest include forest disturbance and recovery processes, model sensitivity and uncertainty, dynamic vegetation processes, and understanding tropical forest response to changing climates. Current projects include working with development of a gap model for a tropical forest to evaluate forest response to elevated disturbance regimes, evaluating model uncertainty in the Community Land Model (CLM) and the Community Earth System Model (CESM), modeling gradients in tropical tree mortality across the Amazon Basin, and improving modeling capacity to accurately represent biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) emissions from tropical ecosystems as part of the GoAmazon Project. Additional projects include working with a multi-lab team to create a first generation earth system model with a fully integrated human systems component, representing human activities affecting land use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Jennifer Holm received a B.S. in Environmental Studies from Emory University, M.S. in interdisciplinary ecology, with a focus on Tropical Conservation Development and forest resources and conservation, from University of Florida, and a Ph. D. in environmental sciences from University of Virginia. Prior to joining the lab, Jennifer was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and has been a field research technician at the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico.