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Graduate Student

Dr. Caroline Daws

Before joining the lab in 2017, Caroline completed a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee and worked as a lab manager on projects related to lake-to-land nutrient cycling in Iceland and terrestrial grassland pathogens in California. Caroline is interested in the spatial dynamics and biogeographical patterns of plant-fungal symbioses and how these local interactions scale up to affect forest composition and function. In her dissertation research, she uses field and greenhouse studies to understand how increasingly severe wildfires change soil microbial communities. She is particularly focused on how the availability of mycorrhizal mutualists across a patchy landscape might affect seedling fitness, species coexistence dynamics, and ultimately, forest composition. At Stanford, she also completed a doctoral minor in education, and she has taught field courses at Stanford and in Sitka, Alaska. In Fall 2022, Caroline will begin a position as a Lecturer in Stanford’s Civic, Liberal, and Global Education program.