People

Professor Elise Pendall / Lab Principal Investigator

I am an interdisciplinary soil scientist and ecosystem ecologist with broad expertise in climate change and land management impacts on carbon, nutrient and water cycling. I lead the Soil Biology and Genomics Research Theme at HIE and serve on the Council of the American Geophysical Union. My research interests centre on how linkages between aboveground and belowground ecosystem components regulate carbon, water and nutrient cycling in grasslands, forests and crops.

Email: E.Pendall@westernsydney.edu.au, CV, Researchgate, HIE website

Dr. Craig Barton / Technical Manager

Dr Craig Barton is the Technical Manager, Field Based Research Facilities and has responsibility for the smooth operation of the Institute’s field-based climate change facilities. These facilities include CO2 /climate controlled whole tree chambers (WTC) and associated eucalypt plantation (Hawkesbury Forest Experiment, HFE), a Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment in native woodland, Rain-out Shelters and an Eddy Covariance Flux site.

Email: c.barton@westernsydney.edu.au, HIE website

Dr. Daniel Metzen / Research Technician

Daniel is our Senior Technical Officer that manages the flux tower instrumentation and handles the eddy covariance data processing for the TERN-OzFlux and mobile flux tower. He is also ensuring that the rain out shelters remain functional and is supporting a range of experiments at the TERN SuperSite and the Hawkesbury Forest Experiment with his technical expertise and data analysis skills.

Email: d.metzen@westernsydney.edu.au, HIE_website

Dr. Anne Griebel / Postdoctoral Researcher

My research focuses on understanding how biosphere-atmosphere interactions affect carbon, water and energy cycling in various ecosystems, ranging from highly managed urban lawns to Australia’s natural eucalypt forests. I am particularly interested in assessing how ecosystems are affected by changes in our climate, as well as by biotic and abiotic disturbances, which I approach by linking flux tower data with remotely sensed data from LiDAR sensors, satellites and ground-based sensor networks.

Email: a.griebel@westernsydney.edu.au, CV, Google Scholar, Researchgate, HIE website, personal website

Dr. Nam Jin Noh / Postdoctoral Researcher

My research interests lie in understanding the ecological responses related to carbon and nitrogen cycles to climate changes and ecosystem managements. My current research focuses on improving predictive understanding of temperature sensitivity of soil respiration and its components in Australian temperate forests within the Soil Biology and Genomics theme.

Email: n.noh@westernsydney.edu.au, CV, Google Scholar, Researchgate, HIE website, personal website

Alexis Renchon / Ph.D. Candidate

My broad research interest is to understand how terrestrial ecosystems will feedback to climate change. My specific goal is to bridge the gap between bottom-up and top-down estimates of ecosystem-atmosphere carbon, water and energy exchange. To do so, my research focuses on different scientific approaches, including empirical and mechanistic modelling.

During my Masters degree, I studied the impact of varying footprint on inter-annual variability of carbon fluxes in a mixed forest in Belgium (Vielsalm). As a research associate, I studied a mangrove wetland in New Caledonia (the Coeur de Voh), where I brought my expertise in data processing and partitioning fluxes, in the context of changing tides. During my PhD in Sydney, I analysed a particular seasonality pattern in an evergreen broadleaf forest (Cumberland Plain). Specifically, I worked on canopy phenology (variation in LAI and leaf physiology varying with age) and comparing soil respiration to ecosystem respiration.

Email: A.Renchon@westernsydney.edu.au, CV, Google Scholar

Kirsten Ball / Ph.D. Student (2nd year)

Kirsten studies microbial and stoichiometric controls over soil carbon cycling in managed ecosystems. She is particularly interested in improving sustainability of vineyards for resilient wine production.

Email: Kirsten.Ball@westernsydney.edu.au, CV.

Jinquan Li / Ph.D. Student (3rd year), Visiting Scholar

Jinquan studies temperature sensitivity of soil respiration across broad geographic gradients. His research will improve simulation of carbon – climate feedbacks in Earth system models.

Email: J.Li3@westernsydney.edu.au, CV

Dr. Gilwon Kim / Postdoctoral Researcher, Visiting Scholar

Dr Gil Won Kim is visiting from the Institute of Agriculture & Life Science at Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, South Korea. Here he studies the interactive effect of increased N deposition and P fertilization on Greenhouse gas flux (N2O emission, CH4 oxidation potential) of semi-arid forest soil under global warming.