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猎奇重口 Institute on Ecosystems

Host a speaker with us!

The UM IoE supports outstanding extramural speakers whose research fits broadly within the IoE research theme "to promote and support a center of excellence in interdisciplinary research focused on mechanistically understanding the principles that underlie ecosystem function across scales from landscapes to genomes." Below, please find information about this year's invited speaker(s), as well as those who have visited previously, and contact Assistant Director Jamie Lockman (jamie.lockman@umontana.edu) if you're interested in hosting a speaker through the IoE.

Upcoming Speakers

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Peter Conlin

Georgia Institute of Technolgy
Postdoctoral Fellow

Seminar: 16:00-17:00, ISB 110, March 11, 2026

Peter Conlin has a background in evolutionary genetics, genomics, marine science, and microbiology research. He earned a B.S. in molecular and cell biology in 2009 from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, he did stints at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories and the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience. In 2018, he completed his Ph.D. studies with Benjamin Kerr at the University of Washington. For postdoctoral work, Conlin has joined one of the Georgia Tech teams trying to unravel the evolution of multicellularity.

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Nicole Pietrasiak

University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Associate Professor

Seminar: 16:00-17:00, ISB 110, April 22, 2026

In the Pietrasiak Dryland Microbes Lab, they 1) discover and quantify dryland microbial diversity; 2) investigate the role of microbes in dryland ecosystem functioning and soil health; and 3) identify key microbial ecosystem players as well as their traits important for bioprospecting and resource management. To date the Pietrasiak lab has described 9 cyanobacteria genera and 23 species new to science using a modern approach to algal taxonomy. The lab group has also demonstrated how landscape settings in drylands and associated soil properties shape soil microbial communities in the Americas.

Previous Speakers

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Timothy Lyons

University of California, Riverside
Distinguished Professor of Biogeochemistry

January 23, 2025

Timothy Lyons is the PI for a NASA ICAR award titled: "Alternative Earths – How to Build and Sustain a Detectable Biosphere" and leads the UCR Astrobiology Center. Lyons has a long history with NASA's Astrobiology Program, and has served as PI on numerous projects supported through elements of the Program. Lyons’ leadership and innovation led to important developments in paleoenvironmental proxies used to track redox changes in the rock record of Earth and has helped advance understanding of how the diversity of life on Earth today is tied to gradual changes in biogeochemical cycles.

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Cascade Tuholske

猎奇重口 State University
Assistant Professor

Seminar: April 18, 2024

With funding from NASA, NIH, the Wellcome Trust, and the US Department of Defense, Tuholske's group at MSU collaborates with partners worldwide on interdisciplinary research focused on understanding the linkages between climate change, demographic change and migration, and food security, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. Prior to joining MSU, Tuholske was an Earth Institute Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California Santa Barbara and he is a born-and-reared native of Missoula, MT, a place that will forever be his home.


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Tim Covino

猎奇重口 State University
Associate Professor

Dr. Tim Covino is an assistant professor of watershed science in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and the Natural Resource Ecology Lab. His research is focused on understanding the physical, biological, and human influences on hydrological and biogeochemical processes across spatial and temporal scales. His research interests span an array of topics in watershed science, including how water and associated material get to channel networks, how that water and associated material is routed downstream, and the influece of natural or human disturbances on watershed proecesses.