CTR - UCLA Faculty Conducting Tropical Research

Tropical Research at UCLA

UCLA faculty members affiliated with CTR are conducting tropical research on many continents. Their research spans many disciplines, and includes such areas as behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, plant ecophysiology, biogeography, sexual selection, and conservation. These faculty members supervise the projects of numerous graduate students and postdoctoral scholars conducting research in tropical environments.

UCLA Faculty Conducting Tropical Research

Name	Department	E-mail	Research Locations	Focus of Research
Barber, Paul	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	paulbarber@ucla.edu	Tropical seas of the Coral Triangle (Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands)	Evolution of conservation of marine biodiversity, coral reefs, evolutionary and population genetics, natural selection and adaptation
Barrett, Clark	Anthropology	barrett@anthro.ucla.edu	Ecuador	Evolutionary psychology, cognitive anthropology, cross-cultural studies of cognitive development
Blumstein, Dan	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	marmots@ucla.edu	Australia	Behavioral ecology
Cody, Martin L.	Ecology & Evolution	mlcody@ucla.edu	Neotropics N Australia	Community ecology of birds Species interactions; acoustics; territoriality Foraging ecology; flocking behavior
Gibson, Arthur C.	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	agibson@biology.ucla.edu	Costa Rica	Plant ecophysiology and functional morphology
Gillespie, Thomas W.	Geography	Tg@geog.ucla.edu	Oceania	Conservation, remote sensing
Gordon, Malcolm S.	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Institute of the Environment and Sustainability	msgordon@ucla.edu	Fishes from tropical Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans	Primarily laboratory studies of biomechanics and hydrodynamics of fish locomotion. Grad students also study functional morphology and biomechanics of feeding behavior and mechanisms in elasmobranch fishes and whales.
Grether, Gregory F.	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	ggrether@ucla.edu	Trinidad Panama Mexico Ecuador Costa Rica	Behavioral ecology, sexual selection, speciation, alternative mating tactics, cooperative breeding, evolution of coloration. Current study systems include insects, fishes and birds.
Narins, Peter M.	Physiological Science and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	pnarins@ucla.edu	China French Guiana Puerto Rico Namibia	Evolution of animal communication systems. Acoustic and vibration communication in vertebrates.
Novembre, John .	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	jnovembre@ucla.edu	(Assists in analysis of global and regional data sets)	Computational methods in population genetics; human evolutionary genetics; genome evolution; population structure and adaptation
Perry, Susan	Anthropology	sperry@anthro.ucla.edu	Costa Rica	Primate behavioral ecology, communication, and social learning
Ross, Michael L.	Political Science	mlross@polisci.ucla.edu	Indonesia Malaysia	Politics of mineral and timber extraction; democratization; civil war
Rundel, Philip W.	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	rundel@biology.ucla.edu	Costa Rica High Andes SE Asia	Plant ecophysiology, biogeography, conservation biology
Sack, Lawren	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	lawrensack@ucla.edu	Hawaii Neotropics	Plant ecology and physiology, evolution of diversity in structure/function, forest dynamics, conservation biology
Schlinger, Barney A.	Physiological Science	Schlinge@lifesci.ucla.edu	Panama	Avian behavioral neuroendocrinology/ neuroethology
Thomas B. Smith	Institute of the Environment and Sustainability & Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	tbsmith@ucla.edu	Cameroon Uganda Ecuador Mexico	Evolutionary ecology, speciation and conservation of vertebrates, especially in the tropics. Conservation of Neotropical migrant birds. Ecology of tropical diseases.
Wake, Thomas A.	The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA	twake@ucla.edu	Panama Guatemala Mexico California Peru Egypt	Archaeology, Zooarchaeology, development of social complexity and dietary studies. Human impacts on coastal environments, coastal archaeology, Holocene natural history, zoology.
Walter, Hartmut S.	Geography	walter@geog.ucla.edu	Tropical islands Mexico Central America East Africa	Island biogeography, habitat fragmentation. Conservation issues in human landscapes.
Xue, Yongkang	Geography	yxue@geog.ucla.edu	United States Amazonian Basin La Plata Basin Sahel East Asia	Climate/vegetation interactions, land surface modeling, remote sensing, regional climate and hydrology.