I'm a research scientist with the Earth Lab and CIRES at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I earned my PhD at the University of California, Davis in the Graduate Group in Ecology where I was advised by Dr. Andrew Latimer and Dr. Malcolm North. My MSc advisor at Colorado State University was Dr. Ruth Hufbauer. I was a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Jennifer Balch.

I am an ecologist that studies how demography and disturbance operate across scales to shape ecosystem resilience in the context of land management and a changing climate. I use field-based studies, cutting edge remote sensing, data harmonization, geostatistical analyses, and a firm grounding in ecological theory to advance innovative macroecology research in the mountainous western U.S.


These are some projects I'm currently working on:

1. Investigating the fine-scale drivers of California megafires.
   
2. Integrating drone-derived data with the National Ecological Observatory Network forest structure data and the Aerial Observation Platform
   
3. Working with Cal-Wood Education Center to integrate drone technology into their inquiry-based learning curriculum with a focus on the Cal-Wood fire
   
4. Characterizing the nighttime fire regime at a global scale
   
5. Using Google Earth Engine to assess wildfire severity and the precariousness of continental US forest systems to state change
   
6. Teaching scientific computing skills to researchers
   
7. GLORIA alpine plant monitoring to track climate change effects on peaks within the Great Basin region
   

You can find some of my previous research and resource management activities here.

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Contact:

Michael Koontz
Earth Lab/CIRES
SEEC Building, Room 348
University of Colorado-Boulder
Boulder, CO 80303

mikoontz at gmail dot com
ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8276-210X
GitHub: mikoontz
Twitter: @_mikoontz

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Last updated: 2022-01-02