Update
Sadly, due to complications with Covid, Jenn is unable to join "Team Vole" in the field for 2022.
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Jennifer is a sheep farmer and archaeologist-turned high school teacher who is laser-focused on climate education and solutions-based inquiry for her students. She took a non-traditional route to teaching, beginning with her undergraduate degree in Geography and Anthropology. She learned how to be an archaeological field technician on remote islands off the coast of Maine while simultaneously living out of her 1994 Jeep Cherokee. Her first-hand experiences in STEM fields have enabled her to effectively bridge the gap between hard science and history for her students.
From guiding at-risk teenagers to the summit of the tallest mountain in the Northeast to snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef with marine biologists with her students, she is dedicated to leading global youth-centered expeditions that have a serious focus on environmentalism, sustainability, and history. She is dynamic, energetic, a bit quirky, and is proud of her advocacy for students who are seen as less-than-traditional. Jennifer is deeply committed to ensuring that her students- many of whom represent refugee, immigrant, and low-socio-economic populations- get a first-class education in solutions-based inquiry. Teaching her students critical thinking and inquiry skills is her ultimate goal, doing so with a skill set which is best-described as “out of the box.”
When not teaching or hiking and traveling with students, she can be found climbing at her local rock gym, hanging out with her favorite sheep, Charlie, having dance parties in her kitchen with her two sons, Cedar and William, or curled up reading a book in her very rare free time.
Dr. McLaren is a faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas in El Paso. Her research group focuses on the changes in plant community composition that result from environmental change (such as warming or nitrogen deposition), changing herbivore populations, shifts in species ranges and changing land management populations. We examine both how plant communities may change, but also what the effect of that change will be on the functioning of ecosystems, such as their ability to cycle nutrients, decompose plant litter and store carbon. We conduct our research in northern ecosystems, including alpine tundra and boreal forest in Northern Canada (Kluane Lake Research Area, Yukon Territory) and arctic tundra in Alaska (Utqiagvik and Toolik Research Station in Alaska), and also in the deserts of the Southwestern USA. You can read more about our research themes and team at www.jenniemclaren.com.
Austin Roy holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Texas at El Paso. His research focuses on wildlife-ecosystem interactions, wildlife conservation, and vector-borne diseases. In particular he is interested in how species shape their environments and how changes in wildlife populations and communities affect ecosystem function. He conducts his work in various ecosystems including tundra, deserts, forests, wetlands, and periurban environments. For this project, Austin acts as field lead for our Utqiaġvik site and collects and analyzes data to examine how small mammal herbivores influence soils, plant communities, and carbon cycling in the arctic tundra of Northern Alaska. You can learn more about his research at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Austin-Roy.