Juan 3:16 ∴ Carpe Vitae

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Are you interested in joining the lab? - see the JOIN THE LAB tab.

Badri Bhattari

PhD student

Badri Bhattarai has a solid background in sustainable forest management, forest carbon dynamics, and biodiversity conservation. He obtained his master’s degree in forestry from Tribhuvan University in Nepal, focusing on treeline dynamics and carbon storage in the Himalayas.
 
His research explores forest disturbances and ecosystem resilience, particularly how productivity, biomass, diversity, and climate affect resilience to bark beetle disturbances. Badri has contributed to various national and international projects, including the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) with ICIMOD and the University of Bern. His work includes the National Forest Inventory, allometric equations for tree species, urban springshed mapping, community forest management plans, and environmental impact assessments for hydropower projects.
 
In his free time, Badri enjoys learning new skills, traveling, hiking, networking, and exploring new ideas and perspectives.

Sarah Morais

Master's Student

Sarah is a Forest Engineer from the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil, and Managing Partner at Ecoquality Soluções Ambientais. She has over 10 years of experience leading ecological restoration projects in the Caatinga biome, with a focus on degraded land recovery associated with renewable energy development.

Her current interests focus on investigating the factors that promote forest resilience, understanding forest recovery dynamics following disturbance, and evaluating ecosystem recovery through biodiversity patterns, ecosystem function, and soil–plant–water interactions.

In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time outdoors with her family.

​Non-Thesis Master's Degree Students

​Julieta Viñas Vilá 

Julia is a master's student with a BS in Horticulture. She has always had a passion for conservation and restoring the environment and will carry that into her gradutue study.  She is a firm believer in working alongside nature and not against it. She hopes to expand her knowledge and skills to eventually have a career to assess tropical and coastal ecosystems sustainably. 

Emile Belmontes​

Emile is from Houston, Texas, he has a Bachelor of Arts in History from Saint Edwards University. He is passionate about land management in forest restoration and creating climate resilient forest ecosystems. On his off days he like to go bouldering, climbing trees and reading. He also has hopes of working in forestry abroad. ​

Matthew Flores

Matthew is from Corpus Christi, Texas, with a B.S. in Environmental Science. He is passionate about conservation and restoration methods in response to climate change as well as how organisms respond to those changes. In his free time, he enjoys running and journaling. He hopes to gain the skills and knowledge required to have a career in conservation ecology.

LAB ALUMNI

Sav Wartenbach - 2026 CBFDP Tree Census Intern
​Isyka Silva​ - 2026 CBFDP Tree Census Intern
Andrew Buckland​ - 2026 CBFDP Tree Census Intern
Freya Christensen-Miller ​ - 2026 CBFDP Tree Census Intern
Ian Jett ​ - 2026 CBFDP Tree Census Intern
Ryan Alexander - 2026 Lab Research Technician

Lab lead - J. Aaron Hogan, Ph.D.
​Assistant Professor of Forestry

Biography:

​I have witnessed first-hand the effects that climate change can have on forests.  Around the turn of the century, several abnormally warm years led to the outbreak of the mountain pine beetle where I grew up in Summit County, Colorado.  Over the span of a decade, high rates of mortality transformed several thousand acres of forest, leaving behind a tinderbox of standing dead lodge-pole Pine trees.  This completely changed the landscape of the area with potential effects on longer-term ecosystem functioning.  Climate change will continue to impact and shape the forests of the Mountain West and the globe. 

I am a field-experienced and academically trained forest ecologist.  I use many approaches to study forest ecosystems, including community and ecosystem ecology, plant physiology, plot-based studies, functional ecology, and remote sensing.  My scientific motivation is to document and better understand forest (and tree) responses to global change (e.g., disturbance, warming, increasing CO2, drought).  I have a fascination with high-diversity tropical forests.  I have done research in tropical and temperate forests.   

My research focuses on understanding the ecology of forests and their future functioning as ecosystems in the Anthropocene

Academic degrees:
2011 - B.S. in Ecology and Biodiversity from University of Denver
2015 - M.S. en Ciencias Ambientales de la Universidad de Puerto Rico - Río Piedras
2021 - Ph.D. in Biology from Florida International University