Drew MP Peltier

Assistant Professor – University of Nevada-Las Vegas

The driving focus of our lab group is understanding how trees respond to their environment across temporal scales, towards improving our capacity to predict forest responses to future global change. Trees respond to climate conditions over long time scales, where precipitation many years in the past may be driving tree growth happening today — we call this “memory.” The lab is focused on improving the quantification of memory in tree growth using new collections of tree rings to parameterize Bayesian hierarchical models  and improve the representation of memory effects in dynamic global vegetation models.

We also explore the mechanisms of memory, such as hydraulic deterioration, structural/allocation changes, and very long storage of nonstructural carbon reserves. Carbon reserves are the products of past photosynthesis, sugars, starch, and lipids, stored for future metabolic needs. Radiocarbon dating of carbon reserves has shown trees rely on decades-old reserves to survive long-term drought, or 50-100 year old reserves to recover from extreme fire. We work in forests across the western US, from the diminutive piñon (Pinus edulis), to very tall coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) and giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum).

Jingshu Wei

Postdoctoral researcher

PhD (2025) Plant Biology, University of Arizona

Research Interests: I am interested in forest carbon cycling. My dissertation quantified carbon allocation to wood formation by integrating tree rings with eddy covariance measurements to examine aboveground woody biomass increment in European beech forests across multiple time scales—from cells and individual trees to ecosystems. Presently I am combining co-located carbon flux measurements with individual tree-ring cores collected at several NEON flux tower sites to investigate how current and past drought conditions affect carbon uptake and individual tree growth. I am also interested in large-scale tree-ring synthesis analyses. In my spare time, I enjoy hiking and trail running.

Zoe Wall

PhD student – School of Life Sciences

MS (2024) Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma

Research Interests: My past research sought to understand the roles of plant-soil feedbacks and functional traits in community resilience to long-term drought in a mixed-grass prairie. I am broadly interested in plant physiological responses to water stress, and I am investigating water potential regulation under drought across timescales in pinon-juniper woodlands. I’m also interested in the application of geospatial technologies to plant responses to landscape-scale climatic gradients. 

Declan West

PhD student – School of Life Sciences

BS (2024) Environmental Science, University of Washington

Research Interests: My current research interest is in nonstructural carbon storage dynamics in Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia trees using radiocarbon dating. I have done previous research on NSC dynamics in trees under experimental drought stress and cold hardiness under different irrigation regimes.  

Josh Stoddard

PhD student – School of Life Sciences

MS (2025) Data Analytics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Research Interests: My previous research experience has focused on the desert and montane ecosystems of the intermountain west as well as applied data analytics in environmental science using machine learning and Bayesian models. I am broadly interested in the intersection of analytics/modeling and field research to understand how ecosystems function and are impacted by change to inform management, conservation, and restoration. I am particularly interested in how the forests of the western United States are responding to weather stochasticity and drought conditions which are expected to be amplified by climate change.  

Your name here?

PhD student – School of Life Sciences

If you are interested in joining the Peltier lab as an MS or PhD student, please apply through the UNLV Graduate College. Once you have submitted your application, please email me describing why you are interested in joining my lab and confirming that your application is complete. Please title your email: “Potential graduate student – your name“.

Coral Bean

Affiliated retriever

Energetic but largely unhelpful