Trees provide us with countless ecosystem services and serve as a critical stabilizing force for the climate. Unfortunately, forests are currently facing unprecedented levels of stress from pest and disease outbreaks, frequent and intense disturbance, fragmentation and a changing climate. Assistant professor in environmental sciences and architecture, Meghan Blumstein takes an interdisciplinary approach to ask the question “How will forests survive the next century of stress?” She utilizes tools from genetics, genomics, physiology and modeling to understand how stress is shaping tree populations and how much potential they have to respond. 

Blumstein holds a Ph.D. in organismal and evolutionary biology from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Middlebury College in Vermont. Most recently, she has served as an NSF postdoctoral research fellow in civil and environmental engineering at MIT and was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest before joining the UVA faculty. 

With her joint appointment with the Department of Environmental Sciences and UVA’s School of Architecture, Blumstein will develop courses with the potential for cross-registration aimed at introducing students to plant biology, physiology and the study of spatial patterns in natural landscapes.