Keynote

Research Interests
Dr. Alvarez-Clare’s research focuses on understanding the links between the carbon and nutrient cycles and how resource availability can influence biological processes, plant functional traits, and biodiversity preservation. As an ecosystem ecologist with a background in tree ecophysiology and biogeochemistry, she combines long-term monitoring, manipulative experiments, and innovative analytical techniques to examine patterns, processes, and mechanisms that will advance our understanding of how changes in the resources required by trees will affect plant-soil-microbial feedbacks. Most of her work has been conducted in tropical forests but as the Center for Tree Science Academic Mentor, Dr. Alvarez-Clare has the opportunity to actively work with CTS Undergraduate Research Fellows and other students involved with CTS and learn about temperate ecosystems both in a natural and urban context.

Accomplishments
In addition to being the academic mentor for undergraduate research at the Center for Tree Science, Silvia Alvarez-Clare is a guest researcher at Argonne National Laboratory. Her research in tropical ecosystems ecology has been funded by The National Science Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Enhancement Grant (DDEG) and Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB), and her work published in top tier journals such as Ecology Letters and Ecology. Alvarez-Clare is the co-leader of a local group that supports Women in Science and is part of the Tree Board for North Central College.