People

Kai Zhu, PhD

Dr. Kai Zhu is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, where he holds joint appointments in the School for Environment and Sustainability, the Institute for Global Change Biology, and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In addition, Dr. Zhu is a Faculty Affiliate with the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society and the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering. Dr. Zhu’s research interests revolve around global change biology, ecological modeling, and environmental data science. He brings together his expertise in ecology, statistics, and computer science to advance the understanding of how plants and soil respond to environmental changes. His research spans a wide range of scales, from local experiments to global analyses. Dr. Zhu has been recognized for his contributions to the field, having received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, been elected as an Ecological Society of America Early Career Fellow, and won the New Phytologist Tansley Medal. Dr. Zhu completed his postdoctoral fellowship in global ecology at Stanford University, and earned his PhD degree in ecology and master’s degree in statistics from Duke University.

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New Phytologist profile: link
Email: zhukai at umich dot edu

Kara Dobson, PhD

Dr. Kara Dobson is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Global Change Biology in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, co-advised by Drs. Kai Zhu and Peter Reich. Kara is interested in understanding how climate change stressors, such as warming or drought, affect plant traits, plant community composition, and species distributions. Kara received her PhD from Michigan State University, where she used a mix of field, lab, and data-focused techniques to understand climate change effects on plant traits and community properties.

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Email: kcdobson at umich dot edu

Shengxi Gui, PhD

Dr. Shengxi Gui is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, co-advised by Drs. Kai Zhu and Ben Goldstein. Shengxi’s work uses geospatial tools to study forest ecology and industrial ecology, to better understand the impact of using forests to capture carbon and mitigate climate change. Shengxi received his PhD degree in remote sensing and photogrammetry from Ohio State University in 2024, where he used satellite-based 2D & 3D data to analyze postfire forest recovery and urban geometric structures.

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Email: guisx at umich dot edu

Wenqi Luo, PhD

Dr. Wenqi Luo is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Global Change Biology in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, co-advised by Drs. Kai Zhu and Donald Zak. Wenqi enjoys looking deep into nature and embracing all forms of diversity. His current work focuses on how global change factors may affect microbial redistributions and therefore ecosystem functions through the lens of soil-fungal-plant interactions. He is also experimentally investigating the effects of soil microbes on plant-plant interactions in the framework of modern coexistence theory. Wenqi obtained his master’s degree in botany from Hainan University, his PhD degree in ecology from Sun Yat-sen University, and spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Pennsylvania State University.

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Email: wenqil at umich dot edu

Yiluan Song, PhD

Dr. Yiluan Song is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Michigan Institute for Data Science, supported by the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, co-advised by Drs. Kai Zhu and Yang Chen. Yiluan is also affiliated with the Institute of Global Change Biology at the University of Michigan. Yiluan is interested in integrating mechanistic understanding and cutting-edge machine learning methods to study how ecosystems respond to global change drivers. Her current research focuses on understanding and predicting changes in seasonality and biodiversity during climate change. Yiluan received her PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her PhD research centered around phenology in the Anthropocene, where she explored the interactions between ecology, climate change, and human society.

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Email: songyl at umich dot edu

Hengxing Zou, PhD

Dr. Hengxing Zou is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Global Change Biology in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, co-advised by Drs. Brian Weeks and Kai Zhu. Hengxing is interested in how the change in species distribution over space and time affects species interaction. Using survey data of bird populations, he is now working on how spatial range shifts over half a century may have affected local diversity and bird-bird interactions. Hengxing received his PhD from Rice University, where he used a combination of theoretical models and controlled experiments to investigate the consequences of species timing on their interactions and community composition.

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Email: hxzou at umich dot edu

Yi Liu

Ms. Yi Liu is a PhD Student in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Yi is interested in modeling interconnections between climate change and plant phenology. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, which she obtained from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in 2022. During her time at SUSTech, she worked on analyzing the impact of wind speed on wind power generation and sand-dust storms. In the fall of 2021, she was an exchange student at the University of Toronto. In her leisure time, Yi enjoys sports and observing nature.

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Email: yia at umich dot edu

Tim Muhich

Mr. Tim Muhich is a PhD Student in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, co-advised by Drs. Michaela Zint and Kai Zhu. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2012 with a BS in Biological Sciences, minoring in Chemistry, and a BS in Zoology with a concentration in Marine Biology before teaching high school chemistry and climate change for a decade. Tim’s research interests revolve around how to increase access to high-quality climate change educational experiences for high school students. Tim is currently working on projects related to phenology and climate education for biology students, as well as how to implement interdisciplinary climate education programs at the high school level.

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Email: tmuhich at umich dot edu

Shike Zhang

Mr. Shike Zhang is a PhD Student in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Shike is interested in climate change and wildfire dynamics in the western US. He aims to expand his knowledge of ecology and advanced statistical methods to develop numerical models and simulations that can assess the feedback of human activities on the ecosystem and ease its burden. Shike completed his undergraduate studies in 2022, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science from Tongji University.

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Email: zhangsk at umich dot edu

Jiali Zhu

Ms. Jiali Zhu is a PhD Student in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Jiali earned a BS in Environmental Engineering from Beijing Normal University in 2020 and is set to graduate from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in June 2023 with an MS in Ecology. Her research interests lie in the dynamic interplay between urban plant phenology, climate change, and human activities. Currently, her research focuses on understanding how human-induced changes impact the local climate system within cities and identifying potential mitigation strategies to reduce climate risks. Outside of academia, Jiali is an avid sports enthusiast, with a particular talent in swimming and a newfound passion for snowboarding.

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Email: jializ at umich dot edu

Xiuyu Cao