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People Directory

Neotoma is a collaborative database effort among a consortium of PIs and institutions around the world.

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Executive Committee

John (Jack) Williams

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jack Williams is an earth system scientist, paleoecologist, and biogeographer who studies species responses to past and future climate change. His research themes include novel climates and communities, abrupt change, megaherbivore extinctions, paleoecoinformatics, and data-model synthesis. He is a professor in Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research.

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Jessica Blois

Professor, University of California, Merced

Jessica Blois' research focuses on how environmental and biological drivers shape responses of North American mammals and vegetation to past, present, and future climate changes. She holds a B.S. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from UC San Diego, a M.A. from Humboldt State University, and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.

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Thomas Giesecke

Associate Professor, Utrecht University

Thomas Giesecke analyses information on late Quaternary vegetation change as documented in pollen data to explore state changes in terrestrial vegetation, ecosystem resilience and threshold responses and uncover tipping points.

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Sarah Ivory

Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences, Penn State

Sarah is an ecologist and geologist who uses fossil pollen records to better understand past ecosystem change in order to inform future conservation strategies. She also works with models and remote sensing data to observe the processes that drive tropical ecological change and vegetation responses to climate in the past. This work focuses on vegetation and climate history from the recent past to millions of years ago in order to evaluate future range changes and land-use impacts in hotspots of global biodiversity.

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Leadership Council

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Quinn Asena

Postdoctoral Scholar, UW Madison

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Suzanne Pilaar Birch

Associate Professor, Anthropology and Geography, University of Georgia

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Jessica Blois

Professor, University of California, Merced

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Donald F. Charles

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University

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Suzette Flantua

Researcher, Department of Biological Science, University of Bergen

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Thomas Giesecke

Associate Professor, Utrecht University

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Graciela Gil-Romera

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Ecology, Philipps-Marburg University

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Annika Herbert

Research Fellow, Australian National University

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Sarah Ivory

Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences, Penn State

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Claudio Latorre

Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

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Naoko Sasaki

Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Kyoto Prefectural University

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Alison Smith

Professor and Dean of Honors College, Kent State University

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Nichola Ann Strandberg

Postdoctoral Fellow, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

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John (Jack) Williams

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Information Technology Working Group

Jessica Blois

Professor, University of California, Merced

Stephen Crawford

Penn State

Simon Goring

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Jonathan Nelson

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Socorro Dominguez Vidana

The University of British Columbia

John (Jack) Williams

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Constituent Database Leads

Joaquín Arroyo Cabrales

Senior Scientist, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia

  • PaleoVertebrates of Latin America

Allan Ashworth

University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, North Dakota State University

  • NDSU Insect Database

Suzanne Pilaar Birch

Associate Professor, Anthropology and Geography, University of Georgia

  • Stable Isotopes

Jessica Blois

Professor, University of California, Merced

  • ANTIGUA
  • FAUNMAP
  • MioMap
  • PaleoVertebrates of Latin America

Robert K. Booth

Professor, Lehigh University

  • Neotoma Testate Amoebae Database

Donald F. Charles

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University

  • Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
  • Diatom Paleolimnology Data Cooperative (DPDC)

Walter Finsinger

CNRS researcher, Montpellier Université

  • European Pollen Database

Suzette Flantua

Researcher, Department of Biological Science, University of Bergen

  • Latin American Pollen Database

Thomas Giesecke

Associate Professor, Utrecht University

  • European Pollen Database
  • Pollen Monitoring Programme

Graciela Gil-Romera

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Ecology, Philipps-Marburg University

Simon Goring

University of Wisconsin - Madison

  • North American Plant Macrofossil Database
  • North American Pollen Database

Sarah Ivory

Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences, Penn State

  • African Pollen Database

Claudio Latorre

Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

  • Packrat Middens

Bérangère Leys

CNRS researcher, Aix-Marseille Université

  • European Pollen Database

Anne-Marie Lezine

Senior Researcher, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  • African Pollen Database

Naoko Sasaki

Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Kyoto Prefectural University

  • Japan Pollen Database

Alison Smith

Professor and Dean of Honors College, Kent State University

  • Neotoma Ostracode Database

Willy Tinner

Professor of Paleoecology, University of Bern

  • Alpine Palynological Database (ALPADABA)

John (Jack) Williams

University of Wisconsin-Madison

  • North American Plant Macrofossil Database
  • North American Pollen Database