People

Principal Investigator

Dr. Liza S. Comita

Liza is the Davis-Denkmann Professor of Tropical Forest Ecology in the School of the Environment at Yale University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. She is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and former co-director of the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Biology and Master's degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Plant Biology from the University of Georgia. She was previously an Assistant Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Minnesota, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). As a plant community ecologist, Liza is interested in ecological mechanisms driving patterns of diversity, dynamics, and species distributions in both intact and human-altered tropical forests.

Graduate Students

María Alejandra Gallegos Koyner

María Alejandra joined the lab in the fall of 2024 as a Master of Forest Science student. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Forest Sciences from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, in 2021. Originally from Panama, María is passionate about plant ecology in tropical forests. She has completed internships at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and has experience working in the private sector with a company focused on reforestation using native tree species in Panama.

Shuo Wei

Shuo is interested in forest regeneration and dynamics, applying trait-based ecology to understand how plant communities adapted to chronic environmental stresses in mid-elevation cloud forests, and bridging the gap between forest ecology and silviculture practices. He obtained his Bachelor degree in the Department of Forestry and Resource Conservation in National Taiwan University. Then, he completed his Master’s degree with Prof. David Zelený, during which he studied the early-stage regeneration of Chamaecyparis obtusa var. formosana seedlings in Taiwan (see publication here). Shuo also studied the density-dependence of plant-soil microbe interactions with Prof. Po-Ju Ke. Currently, he is trying to figure out what would be the next topic to go for.

Stanley Tan

Stanley joined the Comita Lab as a PhD student in Fall 2024. He is interested in studying how plant and microbial communities interact to influence the plant diversity and ecology of tropical forests. Prior to Yale, Stanley worked at the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat. He obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Studies from Yale-NUS College at the National University of Singapore. Read more about Stanley's work here.

Alma Trujillo Miranda

Alma joined the lab as a PhD student in Fall 2021. She received a Masters of Science degree from Instituto de Ecología A. C. in México, where she conducted research on the effectiveness of active versus passive restoration strategies implemented in tropical montane cloud forest. Alma's Ph.D. dissertation research is focused on understanding how abiotic and biotic factors drive palm regeneration and biodiversity, and how palm functional traits modulate species responses to different types of edge contrast (pasture vs. cacao) in a gradient of landscape forest loss across a human-modified tropical landscape in northwestern Ecuador.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr. Luke Browne

Luke joined the lab as a postdoc in 2019 and is now an Associate Research Scientist. He received his PhD from Tulane University where he focused on patterns of genetic and species diversity of palm tree communities in Ecuador. Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA working on the genomics of climate adaptation in oak trees. His current research in the lab focuses on the effects of water availability and extreme climate events like El Niño on tropical tree communities across multiple sites in Panama. Luke also works with the Fundación para la Conservación de los Andes Tropicales to conserve biodiversity and promote the social and economic well-being of local communities in the Chocó rainforests of northwestern Ecuador. Read more about Luke's research here.

Dr. Nohemi Huanca Nunez

Nohemi first joined the lab as a YIBS Donnelley Postdoctoral Fellow and is now an Associate Research Scientist. Her overarching research goal is to explain the ecological processes that shape and promote diversity in old-growth forests and influence forest regeneration in human-modified landscapes. Currently, Nohemi focuses on the interaction between above-ground and below-ground functional traits in shaping composition in tree communities recovering from human disturbance in Panama. She earned her PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, focusing on abiotic and biotic factors shaping seed-rain and seedling establishment in human-modified landscapes in Costa Rica. Read more about Nohemi here.

Dr. Anita Weissflog

Anita investigates how insect herbivores and fungal pathogens affect seedling dynamics during the natural regeneration of tropical forests. Anita joined the Comita lab as a postdoctoral researcher in fall 2022 after obtaining her PhD at Bangor University, UK. Using a combination of laboratory and field studies in Panama, Anita hopes to advance our understanding of how species interactions contribute to shaping patterns of biodiversity and driving ecosystem recovery. Read more about Anita here