My research centers on the combined use of field work, GIS, and geospatial analysis to explore questions related to urban ecosystems.  To this end, my research interests are highly interdisciplinary, integrating the natural and social sciences to understand human-environment interactions with a particular focus on the utilization of spatial models and analysis techniques to better understand the relationships between human well-being, urban ecosystem structure and function, and land use.  Through this research I seek to identify fundamental aspects of urban social-ecological systems that can effectively be applied to produce cities that support both environmental functioning and human quality-of-life.

My present research includes projects in three main areas:

Urban biodiversity:  My research in this area seeks to identify how key biophysical and human elements of urban social-ecological systems and surrounding landscapes influence urban biodiversity as well as the regional generalizability of these relationships among cities, focusing on bird and vegetation communities in a series of small cities in the US Corn Belt, an area where little urban ecological research has been conducted.

The values of urban green and blue: Urban water bodies (bluespace) and vegetated open spaces (greenspace) are key sites for building urban sustainability, promoting social, economic, and environmental objectives and influencing human well-being. Building sustainable cities requires an understanding of how urbanities value these amenities, how values vary within cities, and factors influencing these values.  This interdisciplinary work seeks to identify where, by whom, and why these amenities are valued with an aim of improving communication with policy-makers regarding the effects of land use policies on urban blue and green environments and human well-being.

Urban forests benefits:  My research in this area seeks to identify the benefits provided by urban forests.  In this research I focus on methods for characterizing urban forests using remotely-sensed imagery, the use of spatial models for quanitify the benefits these forests provide (e.g., carbon storage and sequestration, aesthetics, economic), and identifying how future land-use change might alter urban forest structure.