Contact Us

Frank Davis, Executive Director

Dr. Frank Davis brings conservation science and geographical analysis to bear in land use planning and the conservation of wild species. In addition to leading the LTER Network Office, Davis heads the Biogeography Lab at the Bren School, and the La Kretz Research Center at Sedgwick Reserve. His research focuses on the landscape ecology of California plant communities, the design of protected-area network, rangeland and farmland conservation, and the biological implications of regional climate change.

Marty Downs, Director

Marty Downs manages operations of the LNO and handles synthesis support, partnerships, network coordination, communications, and training. Marty brings more than 15 years of science communications experience as a writer, editor and communications professional in academic, non-profit and government organizations. Research in ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry took her to several LTER sites in her early career, but she has focused on research facilitation since 2007. Marty uses she/her pronouns.

downs@nceas.ucsb.edu | 617-833-7930

Jennifer Caselle, Synthesis Activities and Special Projects

Dr. Jennifer Caselle works with LTER leadership to coordinate LNO synthesis research activities and to evaluate those activities. She is a research biologist at UCSB and PI of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), with extensive experience in long term ecological research and participation in NCEAS working groups.

jenn.caselle@ucsb.edu | 805-893-5144

Julien Brun, Scientific Programmer

Dr. Julien Brun, with the assistance of a small group of LNO data interns, provides support and advice to the LNO synthesis working groups in several areas, including remote collaboration, collecting and assembling data, modeling and analysis of data and training in working with collaborative analysis tools.

brun@nceas.ucsb.edu | 805-893-7525

Gabriel De La Rosa, Communications Officer

Gabriel De La Rosa runs digital communications for the LTER network, including story development, website management, writing mentorship, and editing. Gabriel found his passion for communication after a varied research career and a Master’s in Environmental Science and Management. Gabe uses he/him pronouns.

delarosa@nceas.ucsb.edu | 310-600-8347

Ingrid Slette, LTER Postdoctoral Associate

Ingrid is an ecosystem ecologist studying impacts of global change. Her PhD research at Colorado State University and the Konza Prairie LTER focused on how previous climate extremes alter the impacts of extreme drought on root traits and patterns of aboveground vs. belowground plant production and carbon cycling in grasslands. At the LTER Network Office, she works to cross-connect synthesis groups and improve their analyses. Her name is pronounced: ing-rid sleh-tuh and she uses she/her pronouns.

slette@nceas.ucsb.edu

Joan Dudney, NCEAS Postdoctoral Associate

Currently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) of UC Santa Barbara, Joan works with LTER synthesis working groups. She received her PhD from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley in May 2019 and recently finished her Smith Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Davis. Broadly, she studies global change impacts in terrestrial plant communities, combining novel methodological approaches with long-term observational and experimental data to disentangle the complex, interacting, and often nonlinear relationships between plant communities and global change drivers, including pests, pathogens, drought, and fire.

dudney@ucsb.edu

Nicholas Lyon, LTER Data Analyst

Nicholas Lyon supports synthesis groups to make more rapid progress on challenging analytical tasks, aids in the curation and archiving of derived datasets, and helps groups to script their analyses in a way that is documented and repeatable. As a data analyst, Nick builds on tools he learned analyzing the data for his Master’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Iowa State University and continued to master while working with the Herbivory Variability Network and as an entomology consultant.

lyon@nceas.ucsb.edu

Angel Chen, LTER Data Analyst

Angel has a Bachelor’s degree in statistics and data science from UC Santa Barbara and recently completed an internship with the Arctic Data Center. With the LTER Network Office, she provides data management and analytical support to synthesis working groups.

anchen@nceas.ucsb.edu