Backstory
Meet the Researchers
Valeriy Ivanov
Associate Professor
Dept Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Michigan
Ivanov aims to uncover interactions, mechanisms and feedbacks among various components of natural and human-impacted system. His group strives to promote both the development of process-oriented models of water, energy and element cycles at various scales and the integration of data and models. He holds a master’s and PhD from MIT and an undergraduate degree from Moscow State University.
Elizabeth Agee
Former graduate student research assistant
University of Michigan
Elizabeth Agee performed her Amazon research as a graduate student under Valeriy Ivanov. She completed her thesis on below-ground structural and ecophysiological controls on plant water fluxes during drought from individual to ecosystem.
Agee holds an undergraduate degree from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and a master’s and PhD in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Other Materials
Collecting dataVideo about Ivanov collecting water flow data in the Amazon to understand climate change
Solve for lifeText and photo feature detailing Ivanov and Agee’s work in the forest
Hands-on in the AmazonFirst-generation college student Elizabeth Agee’s journey from Indiana to the Amazon, and how she is inspiring others to follow in her footsteps
Authors
Gabe Cherry has been a senior news and feature writer/editor with U-M Engineering Communication and Marketing for five years. He has over twenty years of experience researching and writing in engineering, IT, public health and other sectors.
Joseph Xu has been a photographer and videographer with U-M Engineering Communication and Marketing for the past eight years, documenting the work and the people who make it happen.
Other Credits
Design: Scott Hyde and Amy Whitesall
Development: Nick Novak and Josh Walker
Editing: Brad Whitehouse and Alison Wells
With support from Ali Cabadas, Cara Gonzalez, Stephen Alvey and the remainder of the University of Michigan College of Engineering Communications & Marketing Team
Related Research
Ivanov, Valeriy, and Scott Saleska. Understanding the Response of Photosynthetic Metabolism in Tropical Forests to Seasonal Climate Variations. No. DOE-MICHIGAN-11078. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States), 2019. https://doi.org/10.2172/1530160
Brum, Mauro, et al. "Hydrological niche segregation defines forest structure and drought tolerance strategies in a seasonal Amazon forest." Journal of Ecology 107.1 (2019): 318-333. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13022
Xu, Donghui, et al. "Estimation of evapotranspiration of Amazon rainforest using the maximum entropy production method." Geophysical Research Letters 46.3 (2019): 1402-1412. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080907
Barros, Fernanda de V., et al. "Hydraulic traits explain differential responses of Amazonian forests to the 2015 El Nino‐induced drought." New Phytologist 223.3 (2019): 1253-1266. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15909