People
Dr. Myla FJ Aronson
Director
Dr. Myla Aronson is an ecologist whose interests focus on the conservation, restoration, and maintenance of biodiversity in human dominated landscapes. She received her B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Rutgers University and the Director of the Hutcheson Memorial Forest. She co-directs, with Charles Nilon at the University of Missouri-Columbia, UrBioNet: A Global Network for Urban Biodiversity Research and Practice. Dr. Aronson’s research focuses on the patterns and ecological, environmental, and social drivers of biodiversity in urban landscapes, in particular to understand community assembly and evolutionary ecology in cities and suburbs at local, regional, and global scales. She also studies best-management practices and planning for biodiversity in cities. Dr. Aronson has used the results from her research to direct decisions for restoration and management of degraded habitats, such as wetlands and woodlands in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Iowa. Finally, she has taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Rutgers University, Luther College, and Hofstra University.
Kamren C. Gorman
Conservation Land Manager
Kamren C. Gorman is a Master’s student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University, where he is conducting a wetland restoration monitoring project in Stafford Township. His research examines how plant and bird communities respond to restoration efforts, with a focus on understanding patterns of ecological recovery over time. Prior to beginning graduate school, Kamren gained extensive field experience abroad, including a month in Kenya participating in a Primatology, Wildlife Ecology, and Conservation field school, and work in Costa Rica as a volunteer field assistant with The Macaw Society, where he worked directly with Yellow-naped Parrots and Scarlet Macaws. These international research experiences further shaped his commitment to conservation science and applied ecological restoration.
Lucien Fitzpatrick
Researcher
Lucien Fitzpatrick is a PhD Student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University. His research focus on evaluating the role of forest structural diversity on ecosystem functioning and service provisioning in urban forests. As someone who grew up exploring nature in the urban parks and forests of Chicago, he has always been fascinated with intertwining nature and trees into urbanized environments. He is particularly interested in understanding how different dimensions of forest diversity (taxonomic, structural, functional, phylogenetic) impact ecosystem functioning and services in urban forests so that practitioners can promote healthy forests that provide the services we plant them for, such as heat amelioration, carbon storage, and fauna biodiversity.
Samantha E. Gigliotti
Researcher
Samantha Gigliotti is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University and a past Conservation Land Manager of HMFC. Her work focuses on effective strategies and techniques for successful reforestation of canopy gaps in urban and suburban landscapes. She is particularly interested the effects of pre-planting treatments to establish site conditions for restoration as well as determining the best strategies for accelerated canopy gap closure despite the impacts of invasive plants and deer herbivory. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Biology from East Stroudsburg University where her research focused on genetic analyses and populations dynamics of large mammals (bobcats, bear, deer, cougar).