About

Nancy C. Emery, Ph.D., is a plant evolutionary ecologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is also the Principal Investigator of the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Her research focuses on understanding the evolutionary processes that shape how organisms respond to ecological change.

Research topics

• Mathematics education
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Psychology
• Pedagogy
• Engineering management
• Medicine
• Ecology
• Geography
• Biology
• Mathematics
• Medical education

Selected publications

• Examining How Student Identities Interact with an Immersive Field Ecology Course and its Implications for Graduate School Education

  CBE—Life Sciences Education · 2024 · 2 citations

  • Ecology
  • Psychology
  • Mathematics education

  One of the central issues in ecology is the underrepresentation of individuals from diverse backgrounds. This underrepresentation starts at the undergraduate level and continues into graduate programs, contributing to a need for more diversity in the discipline. We hypothesize that the interplay of students' identities and contextual factors influence how students perceive their sense of belonging in a field-based discipline. We present findings from a 2-yr evaluation of a pregraduate school field program, FIRED UP (Field-Intensive Research Emphasizing Diversity UP in the alpine), where students interacted with a curriculum focused on building field skills and cohort bonding. Students provided feedback through surveys and interviews conducted at various phases throughout the program. Using the Phenomenological Variant Ecological Systems Theory, we present our interview results in three cases describing differing student outcomes regarding belonging which allows us to give voice and weight to students with more critical and constructive perspectives. Thus, the results of this study can be used to critically examine field-based educational program design to maximize the ability of programs to respond to diverse student needs. The broader implications of this work address how to approach pregraduate school training and cohort building that supports students marginalized in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines as they enter graduate school.

  PublisherDOI

• Mechanical memory stored through epigenetic remodeling reduces cell therapeutic potential

  Biophysical Journal · 2023 · 39 citations

  • Cell biology
  • Chemistry
  • Neuroscience
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• GETTING FIRED-UP ABOUT GRADUATE SCHOOL: THE ROLE OF PLACE IN COMMUNITY BUILDING AND FIELD-SPECIFIC TRAINING

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2023

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Medical education
  PublisherDOI

• Niche Breadth: Causes and Consequences for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation

  The Quarterly Review of Biology · 2020 · 324 citations

  • Ecology
  • Biology

  Niche breadth is a unifying concept spanning diverse aspects of ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Niche breadth usually refers to the diversity of resources used or environments tolerated by an individual, population, species, or clade. Here we review key research in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology in light of niche breadth. Namely, we explore the role of niche breadth in shaping geographic distributions and species richness from local to landscape scales, how niche breadth evolves and influences lineage diversification, and its use for understanding species invasions, responses to climate change, vulnerability to extinction, and ecosystem functioning. This diverse literature informs a research agenda that identifies focused needs for further progress: testing the hierarchical nature of niche breadth (e.g., of individuals, populations, and species); quantifying correlations in niche breadth among different niche axes and the role of environmental drivers and organismal constraints in generating these correlations; and evaluating the factors that decouple fundamental and realized niches. We describe how this research agenda could help unify disparate subdisciplines and shed light on key questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lisa A. Corwin

  5 shared

• Scott A. Taylor

  5 shared

• Sandhya Krishnan

  University of Colorado Boulder

  5 shared

• Julian Resasco

  5 shared

• Sriparna Saha

  Woxsen School of Business

  5 shared

• Valerie J. McKenzie

  University of Colorado Boulder

  1 shared

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