Research Staff

I am an ecologist with expertise in plant-soil interactions, microbial ecology, and soil carbon cycling. Much of my research focuses on understanding how the complexity of soil microbial communities influence plant and ecosystem function. I am passionate about using rigorous science in conjunction with stakeholder partnerships to solve read-world environmental challenges. Currently I am a postdoctoral research associate working with the Lien lab and the Utah-based non-profit Working Lands Conservation (WLC).

Alessandra Gorlier earned her Ph.D. in “Sustainable Pasture and Forage Systems for Land Management and Animal Product Quality” at the University of Florence (Italy), and her 5-year degree in “Forestry and Environmental Sciences” at the University of Turin (Italy). For fifteen years, she worked with the Grassland Ecology and Management group of the University of Turin, Dept. of Agricultural, Forest, and Food Sciences, where she fulfilled responsibilities in national and international projects and conducted research on grassland communities and grazing management.

Focus on drylands and dryland development, in particular in the West African Sahel region, from regional-scale, remote-sensing based perspective on vegetation dynamics to local-scale, people-focused research on land use and management challenges.

Pronouns: they/them and he/him

I am conducting interdisciplinary research to address how vegetation responds to climate variability and long-term change and ecosystem recovery and resilience under extreme events. I combine multiple datasets, including eddy-covariance, remote sensing, and tree ring with Earth system models, employing tools from physics-based theories to machine learning techniques to gain a mechanistic of biological process to inform projections under future climate change scenarios better.

• Development and implementation of citizen science wildlife monitoring with geospatial data contributions.
• Ongoing development of a web based integrated geodatabase with access to analytical tools.