Governance
Vegetation Section Officers
Chair: Andrés Andrade
Andrés is a plant and fire ecologist whose research examines how changing fire regimes due to historical fire suppression and climate change may alter post-fire successional trajectories and decrease ecosystem resilience over time. Andrés completed his B.S. in Biology and Ph.D in Integrative Biology at the University of Colorado Denver, where he investigated understory community assembly over three decades following the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Currently, Andrés is an Assistant Research Professor at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, where he is investigating how to leverage satellite-derived drought monitoring indices, which incorporate information on antecedent climate and fuels availability, to improve seasonal fire potential forecasts. Moreover, he works to increase participation of underrepresented groups in science through mentorship and experiential research. Andrés has been a member of ESA since 2018 and served previously as the Student Representative for the Vegetation Section (2019 – 2020), as well as a Graduate Mentor in the Strategies for Ecology, Education, Diversity, and Sustainability (SEEDS) program.
Vice Chair: Morgan Frost
Morgan Frost is a plant ecologist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Wyoming, where she studies invasive annual grass management in semi-arid rangelands of the western United States. Her work integrates climate and topographic data across spatial scales to understand variability in herbicide treatment outcomes and post-treatment invasion risk, with an emphasis on translating ecological data into actionable insights for land managers. Morgan completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where her research examined how invasive species and global change drivers influence native rangeland communities. Morgan has been a member of the Ecological Society of America since 2020 and previously served as the Student Representative for the Vegetation Section (2021–2023).
Secretary/Treasurer: Nathan Kiel (ngkiel@esf.edu)
Nathan is a plant ecologist and a post-doctoral associate at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Much of his research focuses on how global change drivers influence temperate and boreal forest ecosystems, ranging from wildfire-driven forest loss to tree species range shifts with climate warming. He complements this applied work with basic natural and environmental history of plant communities. Beyond research, he is passionate about undergraduate education and mentorship and is an Early Career Researcher Editor with the journal Botany. He has been an ESA and Vegetation Section member since 2022.
Student Representative: Ali Alghamdi (ali.a.alghamdi@ucdenver.edu)
Ali Alghamdi is a PhD candidate in Integrative and Systems Biology at the University of Colorado Denver, in Dr. Diana F. Tomback’s Ecology Lab. His research focuses on plant ecology, natural regeneration, and restoration of degraded ecosystems. His dissertation examines how disturbances influence ecosystem resilience across contrasting systems. In Yellowstone National Park, he investigates the effects of mountain pine beetle, induced canopy openings on the regeneration of the threatened whitebark pine, as well as the impact of bison activity on limber pine damage and regeneration. In parallel, his work in Saudi Arabia focuses on restoring degraded arid landscapes using remote sensing, soil seed bank ecology, and nature-based restoration approaches. Through this work, Ali aims to improve understanding of regeneration processes and support science-based conservation and restoration strategies under changing environmental conditions.
Past Chair: Carissa Brown (carissab@mun.ca)
Carissa is a plant ecologist and associate professor of biogeography at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Her Northern EDGE Lab research group focuses on the distribution of plant species at the edge of their ranges, with particular emphasis on non-climatic factors influencing species responses to climate change. Her research primarily takes place in fire-driven boreal forest ecosystems, in both sub-arctic and southern regions. Carissa champions the use of experimentation in field studies, and leads the Global Treeline Range Expansion Experiment. She has been engaged with ESA since her first meeting in Montreal in 2005, most recently chairing ESA’s W.S. Cooper Award Committee, as well as being an active member of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution.
See all past Vegetation Section Officers since 1984 (Section’s establishment) here.