Senior Personnel
Keith Bradley
Email: bradley@regionalconservation.org
A native of South Florida , Keith has worked since 1991 on a broad array of biological research and conservation projects and has developed exemplary skills in managing large logistically-complex projects. Prior to IRC, he spent two years working for the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management, where he prepared floristic inventories of natural areas and conducted research on endangered pine rockland plants, and two years as a research assistant at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (FTBG), where his duties included monitoring of pine rockland vegetation and preparing status surveys of endangered species. In 1995, he joined IRC as a field biologist assisting with the Floristic Inventory of South Florida, the results of which were published as the book Rare Plants of South Florida : Their History, Conservation, and Restoration (Gann, Bradley & Woodmansee 2002). Since that time, Keith has managed several large IRC projects for federal and state agencies including the floristic inventories of Big Cypress National Preserve and Biscayne National Park , the aerial monitoring of exotic plants in southern Florida , the preparation of status surveys of candidate species for federal listing under the Endangered Species Act, and the demographic monitoring of endangered species. He is widely considered an expert on the flora of southern Florida and is often acknowledged as such in publications including the Flora of Florida (Wunderlin & Hansen 2000). His responsibilities at IRC include the management of the Floristic Inventory of South Florida Database and the development of IRC’s GIS resources. He has deposited over 2000 herbarium specimens at FTBG, has published numerous technical reports and articles, and has made regular presentations to the general public and technical audiences. He is past president of the Dade County chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society and served for two years on the board of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council.
Jenifer Barnes
Email: jabarne@sfwmd.gov
Colin Saunders
Email: csaunder@sfwmd.gov
Henry Briceno
Tel: 305.348.1269 | Email: bricenoh@fiu.edu
Currently, Dr. Briceño is an Affiliate Research Scholar at the Florida International University, after being professor at Universidad Central de Venezuela since 1976. He has lectured undergraduate courses on Geochemistry, Physical Geology, Geomorphology, Photogeological Interpretation, and Field Geology, as well as X-Ray Mineralogy, Remote Sensing, Field Geology and Geochemistry Seminar in graduate school. His research activities include Remote Sensing in heavily vegetated terrains, Geochemical Watershed Assessment, Tropical Weathering, Engineering Geology, Geochemical Exploration, Geomorphology and Chemostratigraphy. He was in charge of the Low-Temperature Geochemistry Laboratory, the X-Ray Laboratory and the Remote Sensing Lab, besides being Head of the Geochemistry of the Tropical Environment Center at the Earth Sciences Institute in Venezuela. Dr. Briceño has held positions as Editor of scientific periodicals and as Director of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science. Most recently, at Florida International University he became Co-Principal Investigator for monitoring coastal water quality in South Florida (Coastal Everglades, Florida Bay, Florida Keys and Biscayne Bay). He is co-author of six books.
Since 1988, Dr. Briceño held managerial and executive positions in service and industrial companies, both public and private. He was the founding President of EIG Litos, a company dedicated to international hydrocarbon and mineral exploration. He held responsibilities as Advisory Board Member and Geology Supervisor for the Regional Resource Inventory of the Guayana Region (over 400,000 km2), and prepared or coordinated environmental audits and impact studies in diverse mining, engineering, hydrocarbon and hydroelectric operations in Venezuela. He was corporate manager for Mining Planning and Control in CVG, the second largest corporation of Venezuela, and was Member of the Board for several engineering and mining companies.
Steve Davis
Tel: 305.348.1576 | Email: davis04@solix.fiu.edu
My name is Steve Davis and I am a second year Ph.D. student in the Biology Department at Florida International University. I graduated with my B.S. in Biology and Environmental Science at Georgetown College, KY in 1993 and I completed my Masters degree in 1995 at Morehead State University, Morehead, KY. My research at MSU was involved with looking at a variety of water quality parameters in Eastern Kentucky reservoirs and constructing a "best fit" trophic state index that could be used to describe the ecological health of the impoundments in that region.
I am interested in all aspects of ecosystem ecology primarily those dealing with the cycling of nutrients between the biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems. Currently, I am working on a South Florida Water Management District funded project in the Taylor River mangrove system of Little Madeira Bay, South Florida
Francisco Escobedo
Tel: 352.846.0856 | Email: fescobed@ufl.edu
Francisco J. Escobedo is an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist at the School of Forest Resources and Conservation since July 2006. His research and extension work focuses on urban and community forest management and planning, the ecosystem services of urban and urbanizing forests, and the effects of urbanization and other disturbances such as hurricanes and invasive woody plants on forests and human settlements. He also teaches courses in urban forestry.
Piero Gardinal
Tel: 305.348.6354 | Email: gardinal@fiu.edu
Dr. Gardinali's research focuses on studies regarding the origin, fate and transport of anthropogenic organic compounds in freshwater and coastal environments. His group is particularly interested in highly toxic halogenated compounds such as co-planar polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and furans as well as pesticides, herbicides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their metabolites and degradation products in aquatic organisms and soil/sediments. Dr. Gardinali's group is also involved in the development of analytical techniques for the analysis of trace organic compounds in environmental samples.
Jennifer Gebelein
Tel: 305.348.1859 | Email: gebelein@fiu.edu
Hugh Gladwin
Tel: 305.919.4718 | Email: hugh.gladwin@fiu.edu
Hugh Gladwin is the director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research and Associate Professor in the Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies (joint anthropology/geography/sociology) at Florida International University. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1970.
His major area of research is the application of survey research and GIS tools to understand large urban settings of high cultural and demographic diversity. Within that framework, a particular interest is to better model the interactions between the human population and natural systems such as the South Florida ecosystem and extreme natural events like hurricanes. For this latter area, integrating human decision models with GIS are a major task. He is a co-editor (with Walter Gillis Peacock and Betty Morrow) and contributor to the book Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender, and the Sociology of Disaster and author of many publications and presentations on disaster mitigation, public health, and public opinion.
Peter Harlem
Email: harlemp@fiu.edu
Rudolph Jaffe
Tel: 305.348.3095 | Email: jaffer@fiu.edu
Dr. Jaffè's expertise is in the area of environmental organic geochemistry and biogeochemistry. He is particularly interested in the application of molecular marker analysis in biogeochemical cycling of carbon by determining the origin, fate and transport of organic matter in tropical and subtropical aquatic environments. This research has been focused on both present-day environments as well as paleo-reconstructions in estuarine, lacustrine and wetland ecosystems. In addition, his group is heavily involved in studying the environmental dynamics of natural dissolved organic matter (DOM), in a variety of aquatic environments ranging from the Arctic to the Tropics. These studies include the molecular characterization of DOM components using a suite of state-of-the-art analytical techniques, as well as photo-degradation and bioavailability determinations, and address issues concerning climate change, land-use and anthropogenically impacted biogeochemical cycles. His research also includes the study of DOM-Metal interactions and associated environmental implications. Analytical techniques include GC, HPLC, GC/MS, GCirMS, pyrolysis-GC/MS, GC-AED, solid state 13C- and 15N-NMR, XPS, TMAH thermo-chemolysis, SEC, and various spectroscopic techniques including Emission Excitation Matrix fluorescence with Parallel Factor Analysis.
Catherine Laroche
Email: catherine.laroche1@fiu.edu
Pallab Mozumder
Tel: 305.348.7146 | Email: mozumder@fiu.edu
I am an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment at the Department of Earth & Environment and the Department of Economics in Florida International University (FIU), Miami, Florida. I am interested in a diverse set of environmental and natural resource management issues (e.g. valuation of environmental goods and services, sustainable development, managing ecological vulnerability, water and coastal resources management). My current research focuses on understanding human dimensions of environmental changes and mitigation of natural hazards. I am also affiliated with the International Hurricane Research Center (IHRC) and the Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC). I received my Ph.D in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Before joining at FIU, I spent two years as a Post Doctoral Fellow at The Environmental Institute (TEI), University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Rod Neumann
Tel: 305.348.2936 | Email: neumannr@fiu.edu
My scholarship is organized around two lines of inquiry: one, the co-constitution of nature, society, and landscape, and two, the political economy of the environment. Underlying these lines of inquiry are normative concerns for social justice and biodiversity and habitat protection. Much of my research and writing falls under the large and ever-expanding umbrella of political ecology (e.g. see Neumann, Making Political Ecology, Hodder Arnold). Theoretically I am guided by a broadly neo-Marxist understanding of social relations informed by social constructivist positions on identities, space, and nature. I previously have conducted ethnographic and archival research in Tanzania, East Africa, while more recent work is oriented toward comparative studies in the European Union and the western United States. I have for many years studied the cultural politics of biodiversity protection, focusing on conflict, displacement, and violence associated with conservation territories (e.g. see Imposing Wilderness, University of California Press). I have a continuing interest in the study of how the historical co-construction of nature-race-nation in the British Empire informs present-day practice and discourse. I have also conducted critical analyses of neoliberal initiatives for biodiversity conservation and habitat protection, including various forms of community-based resource management, resource commodification, and land privatization (e.g. see Commercialisation of NTFPs, UNFAO and CIFOR). I have received funding for my research from SSRC, NSF, NEH, CIFOR, the EU, and the Fulbright Program. Past and current editorial board appointments include Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Antipode, and Political Geography. My professional memberships include the Association of American Geographers and the American Anthropological Association.
Joseph O’Brien
Tel: 706.559.4336 | Email: jjobrien@fs.fed.us
I am currently examining the physiological mechanisms behind the high mortality of ancient long leaf pines after fires are reintroduced to long unburned stands. I am also studying the impact of combining prescribed fire with slash pine plantation management practices in Florida to reduce dangerous fuel loads. I am developing a research program on the fire ecology of tropical pine forest ecosystems in southern Florida and the Bahama Archipelago. Generally, I am interested in the relationship between fire and plant ecophysiology, population dynamics and ecosystem properties.
Curriculum Vitae
Nick Oehm
Tel: 305.348.1592 | EmaiL: oehmn@fiu.edu
Jeff Onsted
Tel: 305.348.1693 | Email: jonsted@fiu.edu
My undergraduate training in Urban Studies and Planning laid the groundwork for my graduate training in Human Environment Relations. In particular, I focused on land use change, especially along the urban rural interface. Using GIS and modeling tools I am interested in the formation of tenable land use change scenarios based on policy options. More recently, I am interested in the unintended impacts of suburban lawn and garden maintenance on the Everglades as well as the loss of farmland to suburban growth in South Florida. I work extensively as a project collaborator within the Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) site of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project funded by NSF. As a member of the Human Dimensions Working group of the FCE site, I explore dimensions of urban ecology, land change science, and policy in order to understand and articulate change in the area. I am also a Project Director of the Agroecology program here on campus. Towards that end, I have been involved both as PI and Co-PI with several pending and funded USDA grants projects. My work both with the LTER as well as Agroecology involves understanding past land use change and its impacts, as well as predicting and preparing for future land use change. I am currently collaborating on several papers involved with the LTER, including: cross-site comparisons of ecological and social homogeneity, using lawn care as an indicator; Resilience and vulnerability to Hurricane Andrew in South Florida; and the role of zoning in the mediation and regulation of land use change in Dade County. I am also the PI on a pending USDA grant proposal entitled Decision Support Tools for Retention and Success of Small and Medium Sized Farmers in Florida.
Patricia Price
Tel: 305.348.2618 | Email: pricep@fiu.edu
My graduate training was in urban and development geography, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods, with a heavy emphasis on field research. I have since added expertise in cultural geography, and today consider myself to be primarily a cultural and urban geographer. My interests have always hinged on socio-spatial processes of belonging and exclusion. Thus my varied publications, spanning neoliberal economic reform, critical gender and race studies, borders, immigration, neighborhood change, popular religiosity, and narrative, return continuously to this principal theme. I have co-authored two cultural geography textbooks, The Human Mosaic (10th edition) and The Cultural Geography Reader, as well as a monograph titled Dry Place. In addition, I am currently authoring or have recently published several pieces on cultural geography in general, Miami’s multiple roles in the urban geographic imaginary, field research results from a large comparative project on Latino/a neighborhood transition, a forum on human subjects protection, and a series of overview articles on race and ethnicity in human geography.
Currently, I am engaged in data analysis and article write-up resulting from a team research project on comparative civic and place engagement in three Latino neighborhoods in transition. This research was sponsored by The National Science Foundation.
René Price
Tel: 305.348.3119 | Email: rene.price@fiu.edu
My graduate training was in urban and development geography, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods, with a heavy emphasis on field research. I have since added expertise in cultural geography, and today consider myself to be primarily a cultural and urban geographer. My interests have always hinged on socio-spatial processes of belonging and exclusion. Thus my varied publications, spanning neoliberal economic reform, critical gender and race studies, borders, immigration, neighborhood change, popular religiosity, and narrative, return continuously to this principal theme. I have co-authored two cultural geography textbooks, The Human Mosaic (10th edition) and The Cultural Geography Reader, as well as a monograph titled Dry Place. In addition, I am currently authoring or have recently published several pieces on cultural geography in general, Miami’s multiple roles in the urban geographic imaginary, field research results from a large comparative project on Latino/a neighborhood transition, a forum on human subjects protection, and a series of overview articles on race and ethnicity in human geography.
Currently, I am engaged in data analysis and article write-up resulting from a team research project on comparative civic and place engagement in three Latino neighborhoods in transition. This research was sponsored by The National Science Foundation.
Rosanna Rivero
Tel: 305.251.0001x232 | Email: rrivero@evergladesfoundation.org
Rosanna G. Rivero is a scientist leading the GIS program at the Everglades Foundation for the past 3 years. Her area of interest has been in geospatial applications (geographic information systems, remote sensing, and geostatistics) for natural resources and environmental planning, with particular interest in wetlands. Dr. Rivero is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and came to the U.S.A. with a Fulbright scholarship to purse her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology, at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (University of Florida, Gainesville, U.S.A.). Although her interest in natural resources planning started more than 15 years ago, while working in the Orinoco-Apure basin, in Venezuela, she has been working in Florida and the Everglades region since 1998. She worked for the University of Florida (Geoplan Center, Urban and Regional Planning Department and the GIS lab, at the Soil and Water Department) and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, in Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Rivero also holds an affiliated faculty position with the Southeast Environmental Research Center (SERC) at Florida International University.
Victor Rivera-Monroy
Tel: 225.578.2773 | Email: vhrivera@lsu.edu
Jay P. Sah
Tel: 305.348.1658 | Email: sahj@fiu.edu
Dr. Sah has been a central member of the Terrestrial Ecology Research team since the early months of his doctoral program in 1996, when he became involved as a Graduate Research Assistant. Currently, he is a Post-doctoral Research Associate, and his research focuses on ecosystem processes and their management implications in the seasonal wetlands in Everglades, coastal wetlands of the Southeast Saline Everglades, and the tropical and sub-tropical upland forests of the Miami Rock Ridge and adjacent islands. Dr. Sah’s expertise is in studying vegetation-environment relationships and effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbances on pattern and processes in various types of plant communities, including upland forests and floodplains and other seasonal wetlands. His research approach includes the use of multivariate statistical techniques to interpret relationships among vegetation and environmental variables in large data sets, spatial integration of the analytical results via extensive GIS databases, and system dynamics modeling. He is also involved in inter-disciplinary research on socio-economic issues and conservation in Nepal.
Len Scinto
Tel: 305.348.1965 | Email: scintol@fiu.edu
Rick Tardanico
Tel: 305.348.2242 | Email: richard.tardanico@fiu.edu
Paul Trimble
Paul came to the South Florida Water Management District in November 1977 after completing his BS in meteorology from the University of Massachusetts in 1975 and 2 years of graduate studies in global scale meteorology at Florida State University. His early contributions to the District focused on regional hydrologic model development and applications. For several years he led the development and applications of the South Florida Regional Routing Model and contributed to the development of the South Florida Water Management Model. In 1995 Paul received his MS in Engineering from Florida Atlantic University.
More recently, Paul has made significant contributions to identifying ways for applying climate outlooks towards more proficient operational and water resources planning. His identification of the link between multi-decadal shifts in North Atlantic Ocean currents [known as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation] to meteorologic and hydrologic records in south Florida was a landmark finding in the understanding of the importance of the Atlantic Ocean to global climate variability. This relationship has been referenced and verified in an extensive number of national and international journals. Paul is currently involved in applying climate outlooks within regional hydrologic models for operational planning. He has co-authored several articles on climate variability and its application to water resources and operational planning.
Curriculum Vitae
Tiffany Troxler
Tel: 305.348.1576 | Email: troxlert@fiu.edu
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Tiffany grew up in Bradenton, Florida. She has received two undergraduate and two graduate degrees: a B.A. in anthropology from Tulane University in 1993, a B.S. in environmental studies from Florida International University (FIU) in 1997, a M.S in biology from FIU in 2001 and a Ph.D. in biology from FIU in 2005. Her dissertation work is entitled"Investigating ecosystem responses to hydrologic change and mechanisms for nitrogen sequestration in seasonally flooded tree islands of the southern Everglades."While at FIU, Tiffany participated in the national Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network as both the co-chair of the Graduate Student Committee and as the co-chair of the Graduate Student Collaborative Research Symposium Committee. While a graduate student, she also served on the board of directors of the Coastal Plain Chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration International.Tiffany's research interests include: coastal and wetland ecology; biogeochemistry; landscape biogeochemical processes; pattern and process controlling plant community structure; plant-soil interactions; conservation, management and restoration of coastal landscapes. She has given numerous lecture and poster presentations in the United States, Canada and Europe and has recently published two peer-reviewed papers based on her thesis and dissertation work and has collaborated as co-author on two other papers with her colleagues.In 2004, Tiffany began cross-site work in wetland ecosystems in Panamá funded in part by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). As a collaborator with IRC, she has returned to Panama several times and developed additional projects in Bolivia and the Yucatan, Mexico. She joined IRC as a research associate upon successful completion of her Ph.D. dissertation in the fall of 2005.
Keqi Zhang
Tel: 305.348.1607 | Email: Keqi.Zhang@fiu.edu
Dr. Keqi Zhang received his Ph.D. from the Department of Geography, University of Maryland at College Park in December 1998. Since 1999 he has been a Research Assistant Professor in International Hurricane Center, Florida International University. His research interests include airborne LIDAR mapping, 3D visualization and GIS. Dr. Zhang has authored and co-authored 25 papers in journals, referred conference proceedings and book chapters. Currently, he is leading a team to map storm surge influenced areas in south Florida using airborne LIDAR, and to develop the high-resolution storm surge model and a 3D visualization and animation system for storm surge flooding.
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