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

Patrick Cannon, Postdoc

Patrick is a forest ecologist interested in the mechanisms that structure and maintain plant diversity in the tropics and how these mechanisms operate across varying spatial scales. As part of this, he is analyzing hyperspectral and other remote sensing data to map focal tropical tree species at landscape scales. Patrick received his Undergraduate and Masters degree in Biology from the University of Sheffield in 2017, where he also completed his Ph.D. in Tropical Forest Ecology in 2021. Before joining the lab, Patrick spent 3 years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Reading.

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.

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.

Paula Uzcátegui León, Intern

Paula is an intern currently working with drone data. She is Venezuelan and studied at the Universidad Industrial de Santander in Colombia, where she worked with drone imagery of páramos. Following her internship, she will be moving to the University of Montreal to begin her Master’s degree under the supervision of Etienne Laliberté.

Laura Cervantes, Intern

Laura is an incoming intern from Colombia who will be working on Panama dendrometer data, co-mentored by post-doc Krishna Anujan. She obtained a BSc. in Biology and a Bsc. In Microbiology from the University of Los Andes. She is interested in contributing to research on forest ecology and working with companies involved in ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation.

Emilie Revill-Hivet, Intern

Emilie is an intern working on Panama GEO-TREES Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) data, co-mentored by post-doc Arunima Singh (who is based at the University of Ghent). Emilie is half English and half French, and has a BSc in Biology from the University of Bristol. She is excited to learn more about the use of remote sensing in forest ecology, and hopes to pursue further research in this field by doing a Master’s by Research.

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.