People

Helene Muller-Landau, Principal Investigator

Senior Scientist and Research Ecologist

Helene is broadly interested in understanding plant communities and forest ecosystems. She uses a wide variety of tools, including empirical and theoretical approaches, traditional ground-based field studies and remote sensing, analytical and simulation models, and literature syntheses. Helene obtained a B.A. in mathematics and statistics from Swarthmore College, and PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University.

mullerh@si.edu

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Profile

Krishna Anujan, Postdoc

Krishna is a post-doc from India working on questions about tropical tree growth and its interannual variation, especially in relation to climate. She is working with ForestGEO’s unique long-term data record of dendrometer band measurements across several tropical sites, as well as high frequency automated sensors.

Krishna’s web page

Qi Yang, Postdoc

Qi is a postdoctoral researcher from China studying tree species coexistence, forest ecosystem functioning, and the links between them. Her research combines ecological modeling, including vegetation demographic and community models, with empirical observations, such as long-term dendrometer band measurements and plant functional trait data.

Nathan Gonçalves, Postdoc

Nathan is a Post-Doc from Brazil working on developing and applying methods to quantify large-scale patterns of tropical plant taxa abundance. His work utilizes hyperspectral imagery, high-resolution drone data, and other remote sensing technologies.

Vicente Vasquez, Graduate fellow (and former intern)

Vicente is broadly interested in tropical forest ecology and restoration, remote sensing, and climate. As an intern, he developed and implemented workflows for automated processing of tropical forest drone imagery time series, and led a manuscript evaluating multiple gridded climate products against ground precipitation data. He is currently a PhD student in Forest Resources and Conservation at the University of Florida, where he is investigating tropical leaf phenology from drone time series and forest structure from laser scanning data. He is Panamanian, and obtained a BS in Environmental Studies from the University of the Ozarks.

Caroline Troy, Graduate fellow (and former intern)

Caroline is analyzing the lab’s long-term dendrometer data set for the 50-ha plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Virginia. She is a graduate of Brown University where she earned her BSc in environmental science, and before joining the lab she completed a Fulbright student research fellowship in India. In her career, she seeks to contribute to forest ecology research, climate change mitigation, and land restoration.

Juan Camilo Osorio Ospina, Graduate fellow (and former intern)

Juan Camilo is collaborating on two projects with the lab. Following up on field work he conducted as an intern, he is analyzing hyperspectral reflectance of flowers, fruits, and other plant organs collected on Barro Colorado Island. He has also contributed importantly to improving plot-based biomass data for the BCI 50-ha plot by incorporating local palm allometries and dendrometer data. He is currently pursuing an Erasmus Mundus Masters in Global Change Ecology and Biodiversity Management. He is Colombian, and obtained a BSc. in Biology from the University of Los Andes.

Mayra Nacimba-Chicaiza, Graduate fellow

Mayra is a PhD student in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology at the Universitat de València. She is a biologist from Ecuador working with the Yasuní Forest Dynamics Project (PDBY). Her research focuses on forest dynamics, carbon fluxes, and tree growth responses to climate variability in nonseasonal tropical forests. She works with long-term dendrometer and census data to understand patterns of tree growth and species sensitivity to climate. She is currently co-mentored by postdoctoral researcher Krishna Anujan.

David Lealaimatafao, Research fellow

David (or DJ) is a research fellow with the Muller-Landau lab, where he supports drone mapping and close-up photo collection for species ID. He is working to develop a protocol for using handheld LiDAR devices to determine diameter above buttress on large buttressed trees. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in biology at the Université de Montréal, in Etienne Laliberté’s plant functional ecology lab, where he uses drone-based remote sensing to investigate fruiting success within and among Dipteryx oleifera crowns.

Genesis Villarreal, Intern

Genesis first joined the lab to participate in the NASA AVUELO campaign. She subsequently measured spectral data from seedling leaves of tropical plant species within a rainfall gradient in the center of Panama, in collaboration with the Yale Planetary Solutions Project for Tropical Plant Species Automatized Identification, and is writing her undergraduate thesis on this work. She is interested in pursuing a masters that allows her to keep working in the ecology field, to create tools, and to research for better management strategies of tropical forests.

Laura Aranda-Cervantes, Intern

Laura is an intern supporting fieldwork for research on tropical plant functional traits, collecting flowers, fruits, and leaves at Barro Colorado Island for hyperspectral reflectance measurements and preparing herbarium voucher specimens for the Genome Size project. She holds Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Microbiology from the University of Los Andes in Colombia. Her interests include botany, tropical forest restoration, biodiversity conservation, and community science.

Daniel Jovane, Intern

Daniel is a Panamanian intern working on Panama GEO-TREES Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) data, co-mentored by Staff scientist Jim Dalling and post-doc Arunima Singh (from university of Ghent). He is interested in learning more about the process that takes the fieldwork into actually usable data to help the mission on Geo-trees. Currently writing his undergraduate thesis on phylogeny in fungi groups found in Chiriquí highlands, and hopes to apply the knowledge acquired to a future masters regarding ecosystem dynamics and co-evolution.

Johanna Haeder, Intern

Johanna is an intern supporting data management, including uploading image datasets to Pl@ntNet, compiling a BCNM-wide plant species list, and preparing data publications. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences and Molecular Cell Biology from University College Utrecht and a Master’s degree in Forest and Nature Conservation from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Prior to joining the lab, she interned at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute as part of the Agua Salud project.

Sofia Quijada Sanabria, Intern

Sofia is an intern who will work with remote sensing and drone data. She is Peruvian-Canadian, and holds a BSc in Quantitative Biology and Mathematics from McGill University. She is broadly interested in landscape-scale variation in tropical forest structure and function, and how it may inform questions in epidemiology.

Fernando Arauz, Research Technician

Fernando is Panamanian forestry engineer, he graduated from the Technological University of Panama (UTP). He has an interest in forest ecology, particularly in the application of remote sensing and GIS tools. In 2022, he participated in the program: Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation in Panama, with the School for International Training (SIT). The following year, he was enrolled with the Panama Field Study Semester (PFSS) with McGill University. During 2023–2024, he worked as a research technician with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Cary Institute of Ecosystems (Dead Lab), where he contributed to field data collection using QGIS, accompanying data management, and assisted in monthly drone flights with a large VTOL drone.

Pablo Ramos, Research Technician

Pablo is the lead technician in Panama for the Smithsonian ForestGEO Global Forest Carbon Research Initiative. He has been working with the lab since 2004. He is Panamanian and obtained his bachelors degree from the University of Panama, and previously held other technician positions at STRI including working on the 2000 census of the BCI 50-ha plot.

Paulino Villareal, Research Technician

Paulino (or Villa) is an experienced technician who has been working for the Smithsonian ForestGEO Global Forest Carbon Research Initiative since 2007. He is Panamanian and previously worked at STRI as a research aide and research technician on other projects.

Melvin Hernandez, Research Aide

Melvin is a licensed drone pilot who conducts drone flights and assists with other field data collection. He is Panamanian and graduated from high school in 2022; he is continuing his studies part-time.

Jorge Valdes, Research Technician

Jorge is a Panamanian botanist who graduated from the University of Panama. In recent years, he has conducted ecological studies of forests in the Chocó region and the dry arc of Panama’s Los Santos province, compiling, identifying, and analyzing tree and liana species. Currently, he is collaborating on collecting and taxonomically processing drone images of canopy trees and lianas for biodiversity studies.