Seminar: Dr. Lucy R. Hutyra - Forest Structure, Carbon Cycle

The GES Department cordially invites you to join us for the next seminar of Spring 2023.

Topic: Impacts of Urbanization & Landscape Fragmentation on the Carbon Cycle

Speaker: Dr. Lucy R. Hutyra, Professor of Earth and Environment, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts

Email: lrhutyra@bu.edu

Abstract: Forest fragmentation is ubiquitous across urban and rural areas. While there is mounting evidence that forest fragmentation alters the terrestrial carbon cycle, the extent to which differences in ambient growing conditions between urban and rural landscapes mediate forest response to fragmentation and climate remains unexamined. This seminar will explore patterns of landscape change across the Northeastern U.S. and the impacts on forest structure, growth rates, and soil respiration. The effects of fragmentation and urbanization on forest structure and carbon cycling highlight the need to include the influences of both of these facets of land cover change when quantifying regional carbon balance and its response to a changing climate.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Lucy R. Hutyra is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. She received her PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences in 2007 from Harvard University for her thesis “Carbon and Water Exchange in Amazonian Rain Forests.” In 1998 she received her BS in Forest Ecology and Management from the University of Washington. Professor Hutyra’s areas of specialization include urban climate and biogeochemistry, remote sensing, and vegetation ecology. Trained as a physical scientist, over the years Professor Hutyra’s research has become ever more focused on the climate and ecology of cities, working at the science-policy interface. She is a national leader on measuring and modeling urban greenhouse gas fluxes and advancing our understanding of carbon cycling in cities. Her current research centers on improving our understanding of the urban carbon cycle, particularly the role of vegetation and land use change on the flows of carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere. 

Dr. Hutyra has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters in edited volumes, including serving as a contributing author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Working Group III Mitigation of Climate Change chapter on Urban and Systems and Other Settlements. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a National Academy of Science Kavli Fellow, and currently serves on the NASA Earth Science Federal Advisory Committee. Hutyra also serves as the Director of the BU Biogeosciences Program and the Associate Director for the BU URBAN interdisciplinary doctoral program.