About

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) of UC Santa Barbara. I recently finished my Smith Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Davis and received my PhD from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley in May 2019. Broadly, I study global change impacts in terrestrial plant communities. I combine novel methodological approaches with long-term observational and experimental data to disentangle the complex, interacting, and often nonlinear relationships between plant communities and global change drivers, including pests, pathogens, drought, and fire.

I spent much of my youth climbing trees and chasing racer snakes in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. My passion for the outdoors has led me to some of the most remote places in the lower 48, and has inspired a life-long commitment to ecosystem science and stewardship.

My research is grounded both by my love of nature and the challenges we face as stewards of a rapidly changing world. It is up to us to explore, discover, and improve our treatment of each other and this incredible earth.

Connect with me:
Email: jdudney@berkeley.edu
Twitter: @dudney_joan
Latimer Lab, Postdoc
Battles Lab, PhD
Photos of me by Clayton Boyd