Current Lab Members

Dr. Jennifer Baltzer

Principal Investigator

Academic Background

PhD (2005) Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto
BScH (2000) Department of Biology, Acadia University

Biography

2007-11, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Mount Allison University
2005-07, Postdoctoral Fellow Center for Tropical Forest Science, Harvard University

Dr. Jennifer Baltzer is a Canada Research Chair in Forests and Global Change at Wilfrid Laurier University, whose work focuses on the drivers of forest composition, structure and function and responses of these systems to global change. She has worked in a range of systems from the tropics to the tundra but currently leads an extensive boreal forest research program throughout the Northwest Territories. Her interdisciplinary research program examines the impacts of climate warming, including permafrost thaw, wildfire regimes, and biome shifts, on the distribution and function of high latitude boreal forests and its implications for northern communities.

Dr. Baltzer works closely with the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) through a 20-year Partnership Agreement between the GNWT and Laurier. Dr. Baltzer plays leadership roles in NASA’s ABoVE campaign, the Smithsonian Institute’s ForestGEO Network, and the CFREF-funded Global Water Futures program. In 2017, Dr. Baltzer was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Recently, Dr. Baltzer was named Laurier’s 2020 University Research Professor.

Contact Information

Email: jbaltzer@wlu.ca
Phone: 519-884-0710 ext.4188
Twitter: @forestecogrp

Postdocs and visiting researchers

Colin Bonner

Colin’s research is concerned with how climate change affects boreal plant communities, and how resilient they are to disturbances. He is working on how caribou habitat is recovering from wildfires in the Yukon, with a special focus on how pests and pathogens, including the novel aspen-running canker, may affect forest recovery trajectories.

Email: cbonner@wlu.ca

Madeleine Whitehead Gallagher

Ph.D. in Ecology & Environmental Sciences, University of Maine, 2025

B.S. in Environmental Biology, Cazenovia College, 2015

Madi’s research focuses on identifying long-term patterns and drivers of fire regimes in the Northwest Territories. With wildfire becoming more frequent and severe, she is using paleoecological techniques to reconstruct past vegetation and fire severity to see how these spaces have changed at centennial to millennial scales. Madi studies these patterns to better understand the role people and climate play and have played in modern fire regimes, how fire can and has shaped the environment, and ways we can mitigate wildfire risk in northern communities. She is grateful to conduct this research and share this work in the traditional territories of the Salt River First Nation, Fort Smith Metis Council, K’atl’Odeeche First Nation, and Hay River Metis Council

Email: mwhiteheadgallagher@wlu.ca

Svetlana Yegorova

B.S. Neuroscience. University of Michigan, 2007.
M.S. Forest Ecology. Oregon State University, 2012.
PhD. Systems Ecology. University of Montana, 2024.

CV hyperlink

Svetlana studies how climate change and natural resource management influence fire regimes and plant communities. Svetlana is interested in creating research that can directly inform management decisions addressing the linked problems of changing fire regimes and climate change. She is also interested in approaches to make existing science more usable for natural resource management and decision-making. In the Northwest Territories project she investigates whether and how fuels management influences wildfire behavior, and facilitates community engagement to ensure that the science products are useful to natural resource managers. Svetlana has a broad and multifaceted background in ecology: from working as a natural resource manager and addressing the ubiquitous ecological problems on the ground, to modeling anticipated climate impacts to plant communities using a range of empirical approaches. She is excited to develop fire modeling expertise in her current role.

Email: syegorova@wlu.ca

Kayla Wakulich

Kayla’s research focuses on community-specific soil amendment treatment to optimize food production and soil carbon sequestration in the NWT. As a post-doctoral researcher on the Future Harvest Partnership, she will be working hand-in-hand with the project partners to help address questions about enhancing food security in NWT in the face of increasing wildfire, by providing outreach through educational farms.

Email: kwakulich@wlu.ca

Craig Woodruff

Craig’s research characterizes fuels and vegetation recovery in the boreal forests of the Northwest Territories, where wildfire regimes are changing. He will support multiple remote sensing efforts by analyzing the relationship between burn severity, time, and recovery rate in areas where the time between burns is shortening. Craig uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop application focused scientific products from high resolution (detailed) Unmanned Aeriel Vehicle data and coarser satellite data.

Email: cwoodruff@wlu.ca

PhD STUDENTS

Claire Bandet

Claire loves all things arctic and boreal, especially the Rangifer tarandus. After her master’s work researching herbivory in Svalbard, she’s excited to keep working with herbivores (this time: Rangifer tarandus caribou). Now at Laurier, she’s working on modeling how caribou habitat in the Central Yukon recovers after wildfires. Previously, Claire has worked on a range of projects, including tundra carbon flux in Alaska’s North Slope, aquatic invasive species management in New York State, urban bat ecology in Copenhagen, and treeline demography in Adirondack State Park. In addition to her scientific research, Claire has focused on community building and policy work. At her master’s institution, she founded an environmental humanities network and she created a workshop to educate ecologists about ecological grief. In 2024, she was a delegate to COP16 on Biological Diversity in Cali, Colombia, and in 2025, she won the Ecological Society of America’s graduate student policy award. Claire received her B.S. from Syracuse University where she dual-majored in Biology and Environment, Sustainability, & Policy (ESP), and received her master’s from the University of Pennsylvania in Environmental Studies.

Email: band6340@mylaurier.ca

Caitlyn Lyons

Caitlyn is interested in how nutrient release from thawing permafrost is impacting the boreal forest in the Northwest Territories. More specifically, she is focused on the ability of boreal trees to acquire and use these novel nutrients.

Twitter: @Caitlyn24Lyons
Email: lyon8610@mylaurier.ca

Andrea Nichols

Masters of Science, Oklahoma State University, 2019
Bachelors of Science, Oklahoma State University, 2016

Andrea is a PhD student starting with Laurier in Fall 2025. Her research will focus on the impacts of re-burn interval in the Northwest Territories. The research will measure ecological and soil changes that are occurring due to the increasing severity and occurrence of fire in the Northwest Territories boreal forest and plains ecosystems. Andrea has a background in soil science, ecology, post-fire rehabilitation, prescribed and cultural burning, and wildland firefighting in the United States.

Nicola Rammell

Nicola is studying post-fire forest recovery in Yukon Territory. Using tree ring records, her research investigates how boreal tree species and stands are responding to changing environmental conditions and how resilient they are to disturbance over time.

This work takes place upon the Traditional Territories of the Little Salmon/Carmacks, Selkirk, Na-Cho Nyak Dun, and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nations.

Email: ramm2270@mylaurier.ca

MSc STUDENTS

Jocelyn Biro

Jocelyn is studying patterns of moose forage recovery following forest harvesting, naturally regenerating wildfires, and wildfires modified by post-fire forest management actions in central British Columbia. Her research tests the common assumption that disturbances benefit moose by increasing early-seral vegetation that is preferred forage. Jocelyn’s research will inform our understanding of the mechanisms contributing to moose population changes. Jocelyn is grateful to live on Wet’suwet’en Nation land and conduct her research on the traditional territory of Witsuwit’en, Nedut’en, Sm’algyax and Dakelh speaking Peoples.

Email: biro6470@mylaurier.ca

Katerina Coveny

Katerina is interested in understanding how permafrost thaw influences lichen community composition across the Northwest Territories. She will be investigating this across Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Sahtu and Dehcho lands to contribute to research on Woodland Caribou habitat and winter forage.

Email: cove3330@mylaurier.ca
Twitter: @k_coveny

Mackenzie Mihorean

Mackenzie is working on the Fire to Forage: Sustaining Caribou Habitat project specifically looking at aspects of Aspen Running Canker epidemiology and fungal ecology. Mackenzie’s field work takes place in central Yukon collecting samples that are then analyzed in the lab using various molecular techniques.

Email: miho0900@mylaurier.ca

Brian Newton

Brian is a master’s student in the Forest Ecology Research Group. His research focuses on assessing the changing resilience of the boreal forest to wildfire disturbance by measuring the frequency of post-fire forest composition changes.

Email: bnewton@wlu.ca
Twitter: @BrianNewton_

Karelia Del Piero

Karelia is returning to academia to pursue her passion for research and circumpolar ecosystems after six years of working in environmental consulting as a Vegetation Ecologist. She is now studying plant community changes associated with permafrost thaw in the Northwest Territories and will use a combination of field verification and aerial imagery to map and predict landcover across permafrost landscapes. She is particularly interested in identifying drivers and plant indicators of community composition change, and ultimately the broader impacts of landcover change on wildlife species, especially those important to local communities.

Email: delp8640@mylaurier.ca

RESEARCH ASSISTANTS AND UNDERGRADUATE THESIS STUDENTS

Spenser Morouney

Spenser is an undergraduate Environmental Science student at Laurier. Spenser has worked with FERG as a field assistant in the 2023 summer and spent several terms as a part-time research assistant. She will be studying the reproductive traits of tundra shrubs growing in permafrost disturbances for her upcoming undergraduate thesis.

Email: moro6840@mylaurier.ca

AJ Kellough

AJ is an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo finishing his degree in Environmental Studies with a minor in Biology. AJ has helped the lab with projects looking at ectomycorrhizal fungi and lichen. He was a Field Research Assistant in Summer 2024. Currently, he is doing an undergraduate thesis with the lab looking at the growth rate and traits of Aspen Running Canker (Neodothiora populina).

Email: akellough@wlu.ca

PROJECT AND LAB COORDINATORS

Emily Bowyer

Emily is a Project Manager with the FERG Lab, assisting with the FIRESCAR and WFRI projects. She has her MSc in Environmental Science and BSc in Biology and Physical Geography.

Email: ebowyer@wlu.ca

Austin McIntosh

Austin is a research technician for the FERG lab and joined in April 2024. He assists students during the summer months in the field with their field work and data collection and the remainder of the year he helps out in the lab/ office.

Email: aumcintosh@wlu.ca

PAST LAB MEMBERS

PhD

MSc

Undergraduate Theses and Directed Studies

Lab Technicians

Research Assistants

PhD

MSc

Undergraduate Theses and Directed Studies

Lab Technicians

Research Assistants