A University of Oklahoma professor has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for distinguished contributions to the field of global change ecology, particularly for pioneering development and application of data assimilation for ecological forecasting. Models or forecasts similar to those produced for weather will allow ecologists to predict how changes in the environment will alter an entire ecosystem in the future.
Yiqi Luo, professor in the OU Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, will be recognized for his efforts to advance ecological science on Saturday, February 15, at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago, Ill. Luo's distinguished contributions in this field will lead to improved responses to the global challenges that are currently being addressed by scientists around the world.
Luo and his colleagues are working on a number of projects in the EcoLab at the Stephenson Technology and Research Center on the OU Research Campus. Among the most notable is Luo's research with an international working group and upcoming workshop titled, "Representing soil carbon dynamics in global land models to improve future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments." The RCN Forecast workshop is scheduled for June 11-14, 2014, in Breckinridge, Colo.
Luo's research aims to quantify dynamics of carbon, nutrient and water resources in ecosystems in response to environmental changes. For more information about Yiqi Luo and his research, please visit the EcoLab website at http://ecolab.ou.edu or contact him at yluo@ou.edu.