Elizabeth May Chair in Environmental Health and Sustainability Candidate Teaching Demonstration: Dr. Ariel Greiner
Dr. Ariel Greiner
Postdoctoral Fellow
Pennsylvania State University and the University of Oxford
Title: Introduction to Coding in R (ENVS 2100)
Bio: My scientific research program is focused on increasing societal well-being through developing socio-ecological mathematical models of ecosystems to improve global conservation and sustainability and disease management initiatives. My goal as a scientist is to find win-win solutions for global ecosystems and for the humans that rely on these ecosystems. I do this through assessing management initiatives in mathematical models of real ecosystems that I design alongside local conservation experts and public health experts. I develop these models in collaboration with conservation/health experts working on the ground in these systems and also with other academics to ensure that the questions they answer increase our general understanding/knowledge of these systems as well as inform management practices. I have also consistently worked towards increasing equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in science to ensure that all feel empowered to participate in the environmental sciences as I believe that this is necessary to find equitable solutions to our current global crises.
I am currently a postdoc with the Shea and Ferrari labs at Pennsylvania State University and with the MCEM lab at the University of Oxford modelling Foot and Mouth disease dynamics and coral reef dynamics to inform management strategies. My PhD at the University of Toronto (with the Krkošek, Fortin and Darling labs) focused on modelling coral reef larval dispersal networks to determine how larval dispersal among reefs might change the stability of the coral-dominated state and to delineate present-day larval dispersal networks and assess the capacity of natural re-seeding to re-seed present-day reef networks. This work was deemed Canadian National Champion at the Inaugural Frontiers Planet Prize competition in 2023. My final chapter was in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society of Fiji, modelling a Fijian reef network and assessing the efficacy of various different management strategies. I have also worked on projects modelling SARS CoV-2 dynamics in Canada, assessing human impacts on worldwide genetic diversity, determining pigeons capacity to learn efficient routes in travelling salesman (or salespigeon) problems and writing guidelines for graduate students working with mathematical models for the first time.
Personal website: http://www.arielgreiner.com/
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Location
GIS Teaching Lab – Room 2012
Life Sciences Centre, Dalhousie University