News

DSE and the Karuk Wildlife Team are thrilled to share new research in Ecology and Evolution that validates the importance of implementing local Indigenous knowledge in studies on biodiversity and population changes over time. Our paper provides groundbreaking analysis on how the Wildlife Team’s traditional knowledge, research, and citizen-science efforts support elk restoration and presents a potential model for Indigenous-led conservation efforts worldwide.

Our ability to predict how any given species will respond to the environmental changes that are happening in our world - like extreme temperatures and drought - hinges on a fundamental ecological assumption: the niche conservatism hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that a species' ecological niche, or the set of environmental conditions where individuals can survive and reproduce, remains stable over space and time. But is that assumption too simplistic? 

DSE postdoc Amy Van Scoyoc overviews a robust, lightweight modeling approach that researchers in computer vision, speech recognition, bioinformatics, animal movement, and more may find useful.

Postdoc Lucia Layritz shares insight for researchers pursuing advanced degrees in ecological modeling on the European Geosciences Union (EGU)'s blog.

Ava is pursuing a master's in data reporting at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and joins DSE as a fellow this semester.
 

At DSE, training the next generation of leaders on campus and beyond is core to our mission. At the start of the 2025-26 academic year, we’re thrilled to welcome back Max Taniguchi-King as our new Research Data Analyst, and Carolyn Zhuang and Evan Lingo as Undergraduate Data Science Interns!

Head to the GeoJupyter blog to read about the recent hackathon, which brought together 25 geospatial professionals on campus for a two-day intensive to reimaginge the future of JupyterGIS.

Lucia created a visual time series of the number of "monros" (mountains) over time, and her graphic was included in a recent edition of "The Crunch" newsletter.

Maya Zomer, a postdoctoral researcher on our team, is the lead author of a new paper in Journal of Experimental Botany exploring how Mediterranean shrubs recover after disturbance and their resilience to global change.

This week (August 5-14), representatives from the United Nations will begin final negotiations to establish a global treaty on plastic pollution. This is a historic opportunity to drastically reduce plastic pollution across the world. 

Lucia Layritz, a postdoctoral researcher on our team, recently published a new paper in Biogeosciences that examines how climate change and increasing disturbances, like wildfires, are impacting the future of boreal forests. She completed this research as part of her dissertation at the School of Life Science, Technical University of Munich (TUM). 

Faculty Co-Director Douglas McCauley highlighted findings from DSE's recent research on challenges and opportunities to end global plastic pollution.

Apply now to lead operations, event planning, and day-to-day administrative support for our team. First review date is July 11.

We are thrilled to welcome A'Maya to UC Berkeley this summer, where she hopes to gain hands-on experience in wildlife ecology research.

Kristin Davis, a postdoctoral researcher on our team, is lead author of a new paper that found Eastern screech-owls are responding to their environment in the Fort Collins, Colorado area in unexpected ways.

Professor Timothy Bowles, DSE's close collaborator on our sustainable ag work, and journalist Michael Grunwald debate the ways we can ramp up food production without causing more harm to the environment.