Alan R. Townsend

Carbon & nitrogen dynamics at regional-global scales; phosphorus controls over C & N in moist tropical systems; nutrient controls over soil carbon storage; human health effects of a changing N cycle

Associate Professor - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology ; Core faculty - Environmental Studies Program ; Associate Director - Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research

Ph.D. 1994 Stanford University

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ENVS Graduate Program - Secondary Core

• Biogeoscience

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Alan Townsend is an ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist, and currently serves as the Associate Director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. He co-directed CU-Boulder’s Carbon, Climate and Society Initiative, and has served on numerous national and international committees and programs, including the SCOPE Nitrogen Program, the International Nitrogen Initiative, the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) Visions Committee, and the Science Advisory Board for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. He was selected as an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow in 2001, and is currently the Director of the INI’s North American Nitrogen Center and a member of ESA’s Rapid Response Team, a group that provides environmental information to policy-makers at both state and national levels. He and his lab group study how terrestrial ecosystems respond to and affect several aspects of human-induced environmental change, including the links between a rapidly changing nitrogen cycle and human health and welfare.

June 19 2006

Tropical forest CO2 emissions tied to nutrient increases

February 01 2004

Niwot Ridge provides a new model for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems

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