Lucy Hutyra

About

Lucy R. Hutyra is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. She received a B.S. in Forest Ecology and Management from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University for her thesis “Carbon and Water Exchange in Amazonian Rain Forests.” Dr. Hutyra’s 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. She is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, has authored over one hundred scientific publications, and served as a Visiting Faculty Fellow at Google from 2023-2024.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Atmospheric sciences
• Botany
• Computer Science
• Biology
• Ecology
• Geography
• Physics
• Optics
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Policy-Relevant Assessment of Urban CO₂ Emissions

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2020 · 140 citations

  emissions, underconstrained despite the inclusion of coemitted species information.

  DOI

• Solar‐Induced Fluorescence Does Not Track Photosynthetic Carbon Assimilation Following Induced Stomatal Closure

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2020 · 134 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Since 2006, six satellites measuring solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) have been launched to better constrain terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP). The promise of the SIF signal as a proxy for photosynthesis with a strong relationship to GPP has been widely cited in carbon cycling studies. However, chlorophyll fluorescence originates from dynamic energy partitioning at the leaf level and does not exhibit a uniformly linear relationship with photosynthesis at finer sca…

  DOI

• Underestimation of Thermogenic Methane Emissions in New York City

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2024-05-14 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access

  Recent studies have shown that methane emissions are underestimated by inventories in many US urban areas. This has important implications for climate change mitigation policy at the city, state, and national levels. Uncertainty in both the spatial distribution and sectoral allocation of urban emissions can limit the ability of policy makers to develop appropriately focused emission reduction strategies. Top-down emission estimates based on atmospheric greenhouse gas measurements can help to imp…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Urbanization exacerbates climate sensitivity of eastern <scp>U</scp>nited <scp>S</scp>tates broadleaf trees

  Ecological Applications · 2024-04-11 · 11 citations

  article

  Tree growth is a key mechanism driving carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems. Environmental conditions are important regulators of tree growth that can vary considerably between nearby urban and rural forests. For example, trees growing in cities often experience hotter and drier conditions than their rural counterparts while also being exposed to higher levels of light, pollution, and nutrient inputs. However, the extent to which these intrinsic differences in the growing conditions of tree…

  PublisherDOI

• Edge cases: fragmentation and ecosystem processes in temperate forest landscapes

  Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2024-12-16 · 7 citations

  reviewSenior author

  Temperate forests are the most fragmented forest biome, yet current understanding of fragmentation effects on ecosystem processes, such as carbon (C) cycling, is rooted in tropical forest research. We review the effects of persistent fragmentation on temperate forest ecosystem processes and quantify the extent to which the US national forest inventory and land‐cover maps represent forest edge area. We found systematic underrepresentation of forest edges across all methods. As compared with very…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Water and Carbon Dynamics in Tropical Peat Lands -- Comparison of a Forested Peat Dome with a Deforested Peat Dome in Borneo

  NSF · $314k · 2011–2015

• CAREER: Assessing urban influences on ecosystem processes

  NSF · $567k · 2012–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Steven C. Wofsy

  110 shared

• S. R. Saleska

  University of Arizona

  79 shared

• J. William Munger

  Harvard University Press

  74 shared

• C. Gately

  Planetary Science Institute

  55 shared

• Andrew B. Reinmann

  The Graduate Center, CUNY

  50 shared

• Plínio Barbosa de Camargo

  Universidade de São Paulo

  50 shared

• Elizabeth Hammond Pyle

  Spaulding Hospital

  46 shared

• Bruce C. Daube

  Harvard University

  45 shared

Labs

• Hutyra Research LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Environmental Science

  University of California, Berkeley

  2000

• M.S., Environmental Science

  University of California, Berkeley

  1996

• B.A., Environmental Studies

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1994

Similar researchers at Boston University

• Benjamin Sovacoolh-143
• Ranga Mynenih-130
• Curtis E. Woodcockh-112