Welcome to the Voelker Lab Research Website!
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Contact
Inquiries from prospective students and other questions about the Voelker Lab can be directed to slvoelke at mtu.edu
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Research Goals
The ecosystems in which our society depends are stressed by ongoing anthropogenic pressures including human-caused climate change. Our overarching goal is to determine how ecosystems respond to environmental change that happens gradually or that manifests as greater variability including more frequent extreme events. With this information we aim to increase predictive capacity for the trajectory of the functioning and health of ecosystems and thereby help our society better plan for uncertain future conditions.
Where we are
The Voelker lab is at Michigan Tech, in the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. Michigan Tech is located in Houghton, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Both Lake Superior and the forests here are big and wild and full of opportunities for exploration.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Contact
Inquiries from prospective students and other questions about the Voelker Lab can be directed to slvoelke at mtu.edu
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Research Goals
The ecosystems in which our society depends are stressed by ongoing anthropogenic pressures including human-caused climate change. Our overarching goal is to determine how ecosystems respond to environmental change that happens gradually or that manifests as greater variability including more frequent extreme events. With this information we aim to increase predictive capacity for the trajectory of the functioning and health of ecosystems and thereby help our society better plan for uncertain future conditions.
Where we are
The Voelker lab is at Michigan Tech, in the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. Michigan Tech is located in Houghton, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Both Lake Superior and the forests here are big and wild and full of opportunities for exploration.
Current Personnel:
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Victor Humanes
Victor started work toward a PhD in 2021 at SUNY-ESF and has since moved to MTU. Upon this update Victor is isolating tree-ring samples for isotope analyses that should lead to a new >500-year temperature record for Central/Eastern North America. originally rom Spain, Victor finished his M.S. degree in dendroclimatology based on two tree species from remote areas of Amazonia within the Peruvian Andes. Here is the paper from that work [Link]. He emigrated to the U.S. after spending two years traveling around Australia. |
Rebecca Feber
After joining the lab as a MTU rising sophomore in 2022, Becca has undoubtably been the enthusiastic member for field work in lakes. There may be no one who wants more to jump in a cold lake and start sawing logs. Becca has also received a scholarship to support her undergraduate research toward a senior thesis project on constructing an extended white pine chronology from near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan. Here, Becca is pictured with a white pine cross-section from her study lake that is impressively large and old as it contains over 400 rings.
After joining the lab as a MTU rising sophomore in 2022, Becca has undoubtably been the enthusiastic member for field work in lakes. There may be no one who wants more to jump in a cold lake and start sawing logs. Becca has also received a scholarship to support her undergraduate research toward a senior thesis project on constructing an extended white pine chronology from near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan. Here, Becca is pictured with a white pine cross-section from her study lake that is impressively large and old as it contains over 400 rings.
Graduate Alumni
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Jessika Pettit
Jessika successfully defended her MS degree in spring 2018. Her primary adviser was Dr. Julia Burton. Here she is shown coring a tree on the edge of a cliff on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Jessika's research determined 1) what climatic gradients and aspects of stand structure affected Engelmann spruce regeneration following catastrophic bark beetle-induced mortality, and 2) whether that recent beetle outbreak was initiated in trees that were weakened by drought stress - or whether the outbreak was initiated only by direct effects of warmer temperatures on bark beetles. |
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Rachel Keen
Rachel successfully defended her thesis in Spring of 2019. Her research was located at the epicenter of the 2012-15 "California drought" and associated western pine bark beetle mortality of ponderosa pine in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains. Her work was supported in part by a large team of collaborators from USU, Oregon State University, UC-Berkeley, and the University of Utah that have helped contribute to the Integrated Training of Continental Ecology (ITCE) project funded by the National Science Foundation. Stay tuned for more publications from her research. |
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Cody Dangerfield
Cody successfully defended his thesis in Fall of 2020. His project, supported by the Save the Redwoods League, was based in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, home of some of the oldest and tallest coast redwood forests tested the distance to which past road-building (Hwy 101) has affected the ecophysiology and health of redwoods. Stay tuned for two fantastic manuscripts nearly ready for submission that address this issue from tree-ring and remote sensing perspectives. |
Undergraduate Technician Alumni
Kearstin Backes and Ashdon McDaniel (2022) and Josh Brouwer (2022-2023):
These MTU undergrads were a formidable force collecting cores and cross-sections from many sunken logs and driftwood across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Kearstin was great at organizing in the lab, Ashdon was up for any adventure and Josh was the impossibly tall and steady sawyer for two years.
These MTU undergrads were a formidable force collecting cores and cross-sections from many sunken logs and driftwood across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Kearstin was great at organizing in the lab, Ashdon was up for any adventure and Josh was the impossibly tall and steady sawyer for two years.
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2021: Kevin Janicki and Mikayla Gaspar
Kevin and Mikayla were SUNY-ESF undergrads; they were both initially students who excelled in my Forest Pathology class. They both agreed to join the crew and keep the vibe positive, lively and productive. |
Maria Catalano
Maria started was part of the lab at USU in 2019-2020 and did undergraduate research on tree-ring carbon isotopes in an old growth Douglas-fir and western hemlock forest at the Wind River NEON (formerly canopy crane) site in Southern Washington.
Maria started was part of the lab at USU in 2019-2020 and did undergraduate research on tree-ring carbon isotopes in an old growth Douglas-fir and western hemlock forest at the Wind River NEON (formerly canopy crane) site in Southern Washington.
Brooke Smith
Brooke started in the Voelker laboratory in 2018 and finished in 2019 at USU.
Brooke started in the Voelker laboratory in 2018 and finished in 2019 at USU.
Nicholas Kremp worked in the Voelker lab during the summer of 2018. He traveled to Utah from Penn State University and helped conduct numerous dendro projects.
Sierra OxBorrow worked in the lab from 2017-2018 and graduated USU with a B.S. in Geography. She conducted a senior thesis project examining spatial patterns in tree-ring growth around the perimeter of Lake Superior.
Lab PI: Dr. Voelker
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To the left is a selfie while practicing extreme social distancing and coring a submerged log in the wilderness section of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in 2020.
Below is a recent CV and a few other details about me. |
| voelker_cv_march2021.pdf |
Academic lineage:
B.S. degree in Forestry from the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2001.
MS degree in Forest Ecology with Dr. Rose-Marie Muzika and Dr. Richard Guyette at the University of Missouri Dept of Forestry in 2004. PhD in the Forest Science and Wood Science at Oregon State University with Dr. Barb Lachenbruch and Dr. Frederick [Rick] Meinzer in 2009. Post-doctoral research at the Biology Dept. at Southern Oregon University [with Dr. John Roden] and the Dept. of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley [with Dr. Todd Dawson] and Oregon State University with Dr. Chris Still from 2009-2016.
Personal:
I grew up in southern Wisconsin, near Madison, and spent much of my free time outdoors with a family who taught me to enjoy camping, hiking, skiing, fishing and hunting. As a senior in high school I chose to enroll in two semesters of Ecology and was hooked [I really like fishing]. The teacher of those classes successfully lobbied me to attend the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point because it had the largest undergraduate Natural Resources program in the country. At UWSP I studied forestry and met some of my best friends.
B.S. degree in Forestry from the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2001.
MS degree in Forest Ecology with Dr. Rose-Marie Muzika and Dr. Richard Guyette at the University of Missouri Dept of Forestry in 2004. PhD in the Forest Science and Wood Science at Oregon State University with Dr. Barb Lachenbruch and Dr. Frederick [Rick] Meinzer in 2009. Post-doctoral research at the Biology Dept. at Southern Oregon University [with Dr. John Roden] and the Dept. of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley [with Dr. Todd Dawson] and Oregon State University with Dr. Chris Still from 2009-2016.
Personal:
I grew up in southern Wisconsin, near Madison, and spent much of my free time outdoors with a family who taught me to enjoy camping, hiking, skiing, fishing and hunting. As a senior in high school I chose to enroll in two semesters of Ecology and was hooked [I really like fishing]. The teacher of those classes successfully lobbied me to attend the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point because it had the largest undergraduate Natural Resources program in the country. At UWSP I studied forestry and met some of my best friends.