DFWT Day at the Farm On September 6, PERCS researcher Matt Tsuruda joined other staff from the Faculty of Land and Food Systems on Westham Island. He reports: "I attended the 2025 DFWT Day at the Farm as a representative of the PERCS project and to do some outreach about the awesome work that our team has been doing this summer! It was a blast to talk to local growers, landowners, and scientists about the amazing insect biodiversity found right in their backyards. I was able to show off some of the diverse ground beetle species I had caught in Delta for my MSc, as well as chat about the ongoing research I've been working on through my PhD. This event is an incredible opportunity for us as researchers to share what we do and to let the public put a face to the scientists working in their region. I'm lucky to get to attend events like this and look forward to participating again next year!" | | Visit to Rivershed Society of BC On September 27, PERCS researchers joined forces with the Rivershed Society of BC's Watershed Workforce program to bring environmental science directly to the next generation. This partnership brought the experience of academic research to community-based conservation, giving youth firsthand experience of what it is like to do research in the field. Keri and Kai introduced participants to critical techniques used in habitat restoration and carbon sequestration. One of the highlights included hands-on training with a soil auger—an essential tool used to collect soil samples and understand how soil composition changes with depth. Participants also explored how to gather basic tree data, such as measuring a tree’s Diameter at Breast Height (DBH). Later in the day, Dr. Matthew Mitchell and two junior assistants (his kids) discussed bat ecology and research with the group. They discussed where bats are found in urban areas, what threats bats face, and how researchers detect and capture bats, The group then had the opportunity to try out some bat ultrasonic detectors and inspect some nearby bat boxes. These techniques offer a window into the health and resilience of an ecosystem, reinforcing the importance of long-term habitat restoration efforts. | | | Jonah Gilbert, PhD student Jonah is a PhD student at LFS in Prof. Jonathan Proctor’s lab. He holds a MA in statistics from Columbia University and a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Amherst College. Before coming to UBC, he was a predoctoral research professional at the Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago working on the social cost of greenhouse gases. During his PhD, Jonah plans on using satellite imagery to analyze adaptation responses to climate change in agriculture. | | | | Carina Isbell, PhD student Carina is a PhD student in the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability under the supervision of Dr. Hannah Wittman. She holds an MS in Community Development and Applied Economics from the University of Vermont. Her prior work has focused on agrobiodiversity conservation and the role that values play in motivating farmers and gardeners to engage in seed saving and producer-led seed sharing networks. She also is deeply passionate about agricultural conservation more generally and has led research on how to enhance the technical assistance system for conservation across the United States. For her PhD, she plans to focus on food movements and their collaborative capacity to forward on-farm sustainability practices. | | | | | Annika Levaggi, MSc student Annika is a masters student at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability (IRES) working under the guidance of Dr. Hannah Wittman and Dr. Juliet Lu. Her research focuses at the intersection of food sovereignty, alternative education, and rural livelihoods. Originally from Northern California, Annika now calls Chilean Patagonia home where her research is largely based. Previously, Annika earned her BSc in Environmental Science and Food Systems at the University of California, Berkeley and was a Fulbright scholar at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’s Center for Local Development. Annika continues to collaborate as a research affiliate of the ECOS Lab in Southern Chile, where she previously worked on a community based participatory research project integrating traditional ecological knowledge and foraging practices into forest management. | | | | Indrid Reis Campos, PhD student Ingrid is a PhD student in the PERCS project under Dr. Chelsea Littles’s supervision at SFU. She investigates how perennial plantings affect the sequestration and storage of carbon in waterways in agricultural lands. She holds a BSc in biological sciences and an MSc in ecology and conservation from the Federal University of Para (Brazil). During her studies, she aimed to understand the impact of human activities on aquatic insect communities in freshwater ecosystems.
| | | | | Lars Sturm, PhD student Lars is a PhD student in the PERCS project from Dr. Chelsea Little’s lab at SFU. He is studying the impact of riparian perennials on aquatic ecosystems and their carbon cycle interactions in agricultural areas. He holds a BSc and MSc in environmental sciences from ETH Zuerich with a major in ecology and evolution. He has previously worked on the ecology of killer yeasts, and on the invasive quagga mussel and its impact on Swiss benthic macro invertebrates. | | | | Naama Rahamim, PhD student I am a PhD student in Jeanine Rhemtulla’s Ecology and Livelihoods lab in the Department of Forestry at UBC. My research combines my background in landscape ecology and remote sensing to study land use and landscape composition at broad spatial scales. I hold both a BSc in Biology and an MSc in Ecology from Ben Gurion University, Israel. In my BSc, I investigated how land use shapes the diet composition of barn owls, and for my MSc I used remote sensing to analyze how land use and landscape composition influence rodent pest densities within the fields in an agro-ecological systems. Before starting my PhD, I worked for three years as a remote sensing analyst, developing soil moisture maps from SAR satellite data.
| | | Chloe Meyer, MSc student Chloe is a MSc student in the UBC Faculty of Forestry under Dr. Matthew Mitchell. She studies how agricultural practices such as hedgerows and pest management techniques impact bat populations on the landscape. Chloe holds a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic. Before coming to UBC, Chloe worked for two summers for the US National Park Service at Acadia National Park, where she worked on the wildlife team study bats and other local fauna. In partnership with the biologists at Acadia National Park Chloe completed two independent research projects analyzing bat population health post white nose syndrome. She hopes to continue looking at individual and population health of bat populations during her master's and beyond. Meet the Research Team
| | October 28, 2025 PERCS Research Seminar Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2:00-3:00pm Location: Room 350, MacMillan Building, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver BC Zoom: register for link We are introducing the PERCS Research Seminars to share information and showcase the latest research that is happening in the project! These sessions will be presented in hybrid format and are also open to partners, producers, and collaborators. In this first PERCS research seminar we will hear updates from three researchers who worked on farms collecting data in the field this past summer. 1. The role of natural habitat in supporting insect decomposers and ecosystem health. Matt Tsuruda, PhD student. 2. Assessing the long-term carbon storage potential of woody perennials in hedgerows and along waterways. Keri Bowering, Postdoctoral Fellow. 3. Noctural pollination by moths. Hannah Anderson, PhD student. Learn more
| PERCS fika! Join the PERCS team for a fika! This is an opportunity for the team to connect and catch up while enjoying coffee and pastries. The next one will happen on Tuesday, October 28, 2025 at 3:00pm and will take place in Room 350 of the MacMillan Building). | | | | | |
