Research Group Leaders

Please note: this page is under construction and represents only a partial list. 

University of California Berkeley

Edward Arens College of Environmental Design

Research Interests: Topics addressing thermal comfort, urban form and climate, prediction methods and design tools for natural ventilation, energy-efficiency, and the performance of task-conditioning systems.

Roy Caldwell Integrative Biology

Research Interests: Invertebrate behavior and ecology centering on the behavioral ecology of stomatopod crustaceans, a group of tropical marine predators.

Rosemary Gillespie Director, Essig Museum of Entomology

Research Interests: Understanding evolutionary patterns and processes among populations and species, especially spiders.

Carole Hickman Integrative Biology

Research Interests: Theoretical, constructional, evolutionary, and developmental morphology provide the conceptual and practical tools for the analysis of form and function in living and fossil organisms, particularly Mollusca.  

Patrick Kirch Director, Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Research Interests: The origins and chronology of Pacific settlement, the Lapita cultural complex, evolution of the Polynesian chiefdoms, human impacts to island ecosystems, and the development of a phylogenetic approach in historical anthropology.

Mo'orea related grants: 1998 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Household Archaeology and Prehistoric Social Transformation in Central Eastern Polynesia.  2000 France-Berkeley Fund East Polynesian Archaeology conference.

Jere Lipps Integrative Biology

Research Interests: Evolutionary biology of marine animals and protists in particular. This interest involves the study of the ecology and biology of fossil and living species.

David Lindberg Director, Museum of Paleontology

Research Interests: Evolution in the rocky, nearshore marine biome.  The evolution of select organisms (mostly Mollusca), the changing habitat, and the resultant interactions between organisms and between organisms and the habitat through time.

Brent Mishler Director, University and Jepson Herbaria

Research Interests: Empirical studies of ecology, phylogeny, systematics, and development of mosses, and the theoretical basis of systematic and evolutionary biology.

Mo'orea related grants: Partnership for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy.

Vincent Resh Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Research Interests: Ecological studies of aquatic invertebrates involve descriptive and experimental approaches to life history studies, herbivore-plant interactions, effects of disturbance, and other topics related to population dynamics, biotic and abiotic interactions, and community structure and function. These studies currently are being conducted in California coastal streams and on the diadromous fauna in oceanic island streams near the UC Berkeley research station in Moorea, French Polynesia.

George Roderick Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Research Interests: The biology and genetics of bioinvasions, and the history and structure of populations, especially in the context of conservation biology. Work addresses both basic and applied questions, taking advantage of the opportunities associated with the geography of Pacific Basin, Pacific Islands, and Pacific Rim.

University of California Santa Barbara

Russell Schmitt Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology

Research Interests: To understand general processes and mechanisms that influence (1) abundance and dynamics of populations and (2) species composition and diversity of communities.

Sally Holbrook Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology

Research Interests: Population dynamics and species interactions of marine species, mainly reef fishes.

Barbara Walker Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research

Research Interests:  Marine environmental politics in French Polynesia, California's Central Coast, and Ghana, West Africa. In French Polynesia, Walker has studied the relationships between gender and work in the process of economic restructuring in Mo'orea and Tahaa.  Walker has recently begun a collaborative project to study the social and ecological effects of the a system of marine protected areas (MPAs) in Mo'orea's lagoon. Collaborators in this research include researchers at CRIOBE, Mo'orea; Eric Edlund of The University of Montana, and Rick Wilder of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Walker's research in French Polynesia has been supported by a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship (SBR-9806256), and a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (00-65195-GSS).