Research Scientist
Full CV (PDF)
Matt has long been interested in better understanding nutrient acquisition and resource allocation, as well as how these processes interact with plant community dynamics, plant physiology, human management decisions, disturbance history, and climate change to affect the cycling of water, nutrients, carbon, and energy through forest ecosystems.
Projects funded beginning in 2022 include studying the mechanisms by which prescribed fire influences oak regeneration near its northern range limit in New England, as well as an investigation in into possible correlations between sap yield, sap sugar concentration, and taphole wound response in a variety of maple species.
Matt has worked on projects from the Amazon to the Arctic Circle, but has mostly focused on temperate forests. An ongoing research focus include using stable isotopes in tree rings to characterize the response of forest carbon and water cycles to increased atmospheric carbon, climate change, and other stressors such as acid deposition. Matt is also a key collaborator on DroughtNet experiments at UNH's Thompson Farm and at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.
Matt completed his PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences at UNH in 2013. He studied nutrient limitation of primary production in forest ecosystems, and in particular the role of mycorrhizal fungi in acquiring inaccessible nutrients. His research was supervised by Erik Hobbie, and much of his work was conducted in the UNH Stable Isotope Lab, of which he is now the co-director.
Prior to arriving at UNH for graduate school, Matt worked in the Schmitt (plant evolutionary biology) and Hamburg (forest ecosystem) labs at Brown University. Much of his current and previous research has taken place at Hubbard Brook and Bartlett Experimental Forests in New Hampshire. He continues to be involved in the MELNHE project examining the effects of chronic N, P, and Ca additions to forest ecosystems.
Matt taught Biogeography (GEOG 573) at UNH in spring 2014, and Natural Resources Field Methods (NR415) at UNH in fall 2019.