Brooke Rose

Background/Bio:

I completed a PhD student in the Plant Biology program at the University of California, Riverside in June 2023 with JAnet Franklin and currently am a postdoc in the VALE lab, COGS, at SDSU.

In 2019, I received my MS degree in Geography from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where I wrote my thesis on the use of remote sensing-derived phenology to characterize forest recovery after fire in South Carolina. As a master’s student, I worked as a research assistant on a USFS-funded project to estimate small area forest attributes using forest inventory data and a variety of environmental data, including land cover, tree canopy cover, and fire.

I received my BS in Environmental Science from Rhodes College in 2016, where I used GIS to compare levels of modified land cover in and around 30 African protected areas to identify areas of habitat loss for the common hippo. These research experiences sparked my interest in using big geospatial data to better understand how the natural environment will respond to human-induced change in our atmosphere and across landscapes.

In addition to my research experience, I am also passionate about teaching. In 2016, I received a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to teach English in South Korea. I planned and implemented English language lessons for 120 high school students. During my master’s program, I taught a lab section for the introductory physical geography course and prepared lessons for approximately 60 undergraduate students. My ultimate career objective is to obtain a tenure-track faculty position at a research and/or teaching university.

In my free time, I enjoy trail running with my rescue Jindo, Kya.

Current Research in the VALE Lab

My current research focuses on understanding how geography influences species’ vulnerability to global change drivers, including climate change, land use transformation, and fire regime shifts. Broadly, I am asking: Do a species’ spatial range characteristics (range size, location, etc.) help us predict that species’ vulnerability to global change scenarios? I will be focusing on a subset of plant species native to California. For this project, I am using a combination of vegetation plot and raster data to construct and compare species distribution models using multiple statistical frameworks. I primarily use R statistical software and ESRI ArcGIS for data analysis and visualization.

Publications

Ramachandran, A.; Huxley, J.; McFaul, S.; Schauer, L.; Diez, J.; Boone, R.; Madsen-Hepp, T.; McCann, E.; Franklin, J.; Logan, D.; Rose, M. B.; Spasojevic, M., 2023, Integrating ontogeny into community assembly: the importance of ontogenetic dependency, Journal of Ecology DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.14132

Backus, G., Rose, M.B., Velazco, S.J.E., Syphard, A.D., Franklin, J., Regan, H.M., 2023, Modeling the effects of spatially explicit patterns of climate and fire on future populations of a fire-dependent plant, Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution, 11:1149509 https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1149509

Rose, M. B., Velazco, S.J.E., Franklin, J. Regan, H.M, Submitted, Disentangling the effects of rarity and geography on plant exposure to global change in the California Floristic Province, Global Ecology & Biogeography 32:218-232

Velazco, S.J.E., de Andrade, A.F.A., Rose, M.B., Minolo, I., Franklin, J., 2022, flexsdm: An R package for supporting a comprehensive and flexible species distribution modeling workflow, Methods in Ecology and Evolution 13:1661-1669 https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13874

Rose, M. B., and N. N. Nagle. 2021. Characterizing forest dynamics with Landsat-derived phenology curves. Remote sensing, 13:267.

Nagle, N.N.; Schroeder, T.A.; Rose, B. 2019. A Regularized Raking Estimator for Small-Area Mapping from Forest Inventory Surveys. Forests, 10, 1045.

Rose, B. 2016. Land Cover Modification Assessment for Protected Areas Containing Hippo Study Sites. Rhodes Journal of Biological Sciences, 31: 31-40.

Conference Presentations:

Graduate

Rose, B., and Nagle, N.N. 2018. Developing Landsat Phenology Curves to Characterize Post- Fire Forest Change in South Carolina, USA. Annual Meeting, Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers, 18–19 November 2018, Johnson City, Tennessee.

Rose, B., Nagle, N.N., and Schroeder, T.A. 2018. Small Area Estimation and Dasymetric Mapping with Survey Data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program. Annual Meeting. Association of American Geographers, 9-14 April 2018, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Rose, B., and Nagle, N.N. 2017. Poster: Comparing Forest Disturbance between U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) and Remote Sensing products in South Carolina. Annual Meeting. Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers, 19-20 November 2017, Starkville, Mississippi.

Undergraduate

Rose, B. 2015. Where the Wild Hippos Are: A GIS Analysis of the Common Hippo’s Geographic Range. Memphis Area Geographic Information Council Annual Meeting. November 2015.

Rose, B. 2015. Poster: Cat Napping: Spatial Analysis of the Memphis Zoo’s Fishing Cats’ Rest and Sleep Behaviors. Third Place Student Poster Award.

Rose, B. 2014. GIS Analysis of Beef Cattle Farms in Tennessee (2007-2012). Memphis Area Geographic Information Council Annual Meeting. November 2014. Oral Presentation Winner.

Rose, B., and Rodriguez, S. 2014. Poster: Amphibian and Reptile Species Richness in Shelby Farms Park. Mid-South GIS Conference. Memphis, TN. First Place Student Poster Award.

Awards:

Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award, 2019.
Robert G. Long Outstanding Graduate Student (M.S.), University of Tennessee, 2019.
Bruce Ralston Geospatial Achievement Award, University of Tennessee, 2018.
Fulbright U.S. Student Award to South Korea, 2016-2017.
Rosanna Cappellato Award in Environmental Sciences, Rhodes College, 2015.
Buckman Fellowship for Study Abroad, Rhodes College, 2014.
Memphis Area Geographic Information Council Student Scholarship, 2014.