People

We are a diverse group of individuals, with expertise in urban ecology, entomology, horticulture, landscape design and maintenance, and horticultural therapy.  We are united by a common interest in discovering and disseminating ways to harness the power of gardens to improve environmental and human health.

Prospective students are invited to get to know our work, prior to applying.  I accept students and post-docs (when funding is available) who have an interest in any of our core areas of expertise.  I do not anticipate accepting new graduate students until the Fall of 2021.

Interested in joining the lab? Please read this blog post, first.

I receive close to 100 graduate school queries, each year. I do not respond to generic emails that do not express why you are specifically interested in working in the Garden Ecology Lab, and what types of specific projects you would be interested in working on.

Current Lab Members

Gail Langellotto (Principle Investigator):  An entomologist by training, Gail coordinates the statewide Master Gardener program.  Her research and extension interests are focused on developing a better understanding of how to design and manage gardens and parks within urban/suburban landscapes to maximize ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control and human health and well-being.  Starting in 2017, she hopes to work closely with Master Gardeners in home and community gardens, to begin documenting garden biodiversity in Oregon.

Angelee Calder: is an undergraduate student Agricultural Science student at Oregon State University who is part of the OSU STEM Leaders Program. Angelee assists with general lab and field work.

Signe Danler, a lifelong gardener and plant nerd, brought her passion for plants to OSU and earned a Masters of Agriculture degree in 2014. Her wide-ranging interests were fulfilled by coursework in Horticulture, Urban Forestry, Environmental Science, and Soil Science. Her particular area of focus is urban horticulture and applying ecological principles to landscape design and maintenance. She is now teaching sustainable gardening as instructor of the online OSU Extension Master Gardener course, and designing ecologically sensitive gardens as a landscape designer.

Aaron Anderson is a PhD student broadly interested in how ecological function can be incorporated into urban and agricultural landscapes. After dabbling in entomology, restoration ecology, and biological control, he became interested in studying urban systems. Aaron is fascinated by native beneficial insect conservation, especially in understanding how such species use urban green spaces as habitat to in turn inform how we manage these areas.

Isabella Messer is an undergraduate student at OSU pursuing a B.S. in Horticulture with a focus on plant breeding and genetics. She has just begun to explore the world of horticulture, entomology and garden systems. Isabella is excited to learn about the various branches within garden ecology and expand her knowledge of sustainable growing in general. She is currently working on an independent research project, to better understand how habitat context influences bee visitation to individual flowers.

Mykl Nelson: Mykl received his Master’s of Horticulture in June 2018, as part of his overall plan to create a sustainable community of alternative learning and living. His work focused on urban garden soils. He is now creating new courses in Urban Agriculture for eCampus. He is interested in community gardening, how private growers overcome their hurdles, and fostering the abundance possible if we all networked together to create our own food.

Jen Hayes: Jen Hayes is a graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree in Horticulture & Entomology. Jen is a Vermont native who is passionate about pollinators; she fell in love with native bees as an undergraduate in the Ricketts Lab at the University of Vermont. Since her first exposure to bee research, she has had the opportunity work on pollinator studies in Vermont, Ecuador, North Dakota, and Oregon. She is interested in how human-developed landscapes, such as farms and gardens, can achieve dual goals of pollinator conservation and plant productivity.

Mericos Rhodes: Mericos Rhodes was born in Seattle in 1991. His dad owned and operated a retail nursery outside the city while he was young, and passed a love for plants and animals to Mericos. After studying philosophy in college, Mericos started working on organic farms, eventually co-founding Spoon Full Farm in Thorp, Washington, before moving down to Oregon State University. His interdisciplinary masters project examines and compares production, ecology, research, and policy in organic, permaculture, biodynamic, and regenerative farm and garden systems.

Cliff Brock: Cliff Brock grew up in rural Monticello, Georgia. He spent most of his twenties moving around studying music and working as an organist at various churches.  He lived in New York City for three years (2003-2005), before briefly moving to Asheville, NC.  After this “nomadic” period he came back to the University of Georgia and completed a B.S. in horticulture in 2011.  He did an internship at the New England Wildflower Society and then worked as a gardener at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, NC.  For the past 5 years he worked as curator of the perennial garden at the State Botanical Garden of Ga in Athens, Ga.  He is interested in how humans relate to the natural world through assisted migration, habitat reconstruction, garden and collecting

Past Lab Members

Lauren Bennett received a Masters of Natural Resources in 2019. A longtime lover of gardening, Lauren studied public perception of native pollinator species, to better understand drivers, barriers and other factors that restrict or support pollination services and increase habitat connectivity across urban landscapes.

Lucas Costner is an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture with a focus on Ecological Landscapes and Urban Forestry. Motivated by the belief that improving human habitat also means working with and blurring the line between the built and natural worlds, he is primarily interested in the interrelations between ecology, sustainability, and horticulture in urban environments. Lucas has moved from Corvallis, and is continuing his studies through OSU ECampus.

Robert Yarnall was pursuing his Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in our lab, for a short time, before switching to a sociology program. We were sad to lose Robert, but agree that his interests in social justice and horticulture were better served by the sociology department, than our lab group.