Catherine H. Graham is an American team leader and senior scientist working on the Biodiversity & Conservation Biology, and the Spatial Evolutionary Ecology research units at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. From 2003 to 2017 she was an Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

, and since her appointment at the WSL in 2017 she has maintained adjunct status there. She received both her

M.S. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

degree (1995) and her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

(2000) from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and did

post-doctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary academ ...

training at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. She studies

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the species distribution, distribution of species and ecosystems in geography, geographic space and through evolutionary history of life, geological time. Organisms and biological community (ecology), communities o ...

conservation biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an i ...

, and

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

. Catherine H. Graham is most noted for her analysis of statistical models to describe species' distributions ( Species Distribution Modeling). This work with Jane Elith is useful in determining changes in biodiversity resulting from human activities. Her paper on niche conservatism with John J. Wiens is also highly cited. They focused on how species' retention of ancestral traits may limit geographic range expansion. In many of her papers, she has sought to unite ecology and evolutionary biology to derive a better understanding of the processes driving species diversity patterns. In particular, she and Paul Fine laid out a framework for interpreting

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

assembly processes from a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

approach to quantifying

beta diversity In ecology, beta diversity (β-diversity or true beta diversity) is the ratio between regional and local species diversity. The term was introduced by Robert Whittaker (ecologist), R. H. Whittaker together with the terms alpha diversity (α-diversi ...

Honors and professional contributions

Graham was named in the 2014 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers in the Environment/Ecology category, awarded to researchers for having an exceptional impact by ranking in the top 1% most cited researchers in their field of study. Her 2006 paperElith, J., C. H. Graham, R. P. Anderson, M. Dudík, S. Ferrier, A. Guisan, R. J. Hijmans, F. Huettmann, J. R. Leathwick, A. Lehmann, J. Li, L. G. Lohmann, B. A. Loiselle, G. Manion, C. Moritz, M. Nakamura, Y. Nakazawa, J. McC. M. Overton, A. Townsend Peterson, S. J. Phillips, K. Richardson, R. Scachetti-Pereira, R. E. Schapire, J. Soberón, S. Williams, M. S. Wisz, and N. E. Zimmermann (2006). "Novel methods improve prediction of species' distributions from occurrence data". ''

Ecography ''Ecography'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Wiley on behalf of the Nordic Society Oikos covering the field of spatial ecology. It has been published since 1978, the first 14 volumes under the name ''Holarctic Ecology' ...

'' 29:129-151. with Jane Elith and others on novel methods to improve prediction of species' distributions from occurrence data, by mid-2014, had been cited about 3,000 times (Google Scholar citations July 31, 2014).

Selected publications

*Elith, J., Graham, C.H., Anderson, R.P., Dudík, M., Ferrier, S., Guisan, A., Hijmans, R.J., Huettmann, F., Leathwick, J.R., Lehmann, A., Li, J., Lohmann, L.G., Loiselle, B.A., Manion, G., Moritz, C., Nakamura, M., Nakazawa, Y., Overton, J.M., Peterson, A.T., Phillips, S.J., Richardson, K.S., Scachetti-Pereira, R., Schapire, R.E., Soberón, J., Williams, S., Wisz, M.S. & Zimmermann, N.E. (2006) Novel methods improve prediction of species' distributions from occurrence data. ''Ecography'', 29, 129–151. *Wiens J.J. and C.H. Graham. (2005) Niche conservatism: integrating evolution, ecology, and conservation biology. ''Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics'', 36: 519–539. *Graham, C.H., S. Ferrier, F. Huettman, C. Moritz and A.T. Peterson. 2004. "New developments in museum-based informatics and application in biodiversity analysis". ''Trends in Ecology and Evolution'' 19: 497–503. *Graham, C.H., S.R. Ron, J.C. Santos, C.J. Schneider and C. Moritz. 2004. "Integrating phylogenetics and environmental niche models to explore speciation mechanisms in Dendrobatid frogs". ''Evolution'' 58: 1781–1793. *Graham, C. H., & Fine, P. V. a. 2008. Phylogenetic beta diversity: linking ecological and evolutionary processes across space in time. ''Ecology Letters'' 11(12):1265–77. *Graham, C. H., Parra, J. L., Rahbek, C., & McGuire, J. a. 2009. Phylogenetic structure in tropical hummingbird communities. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' 106 Suppl:19673–8. *Graham, C.H., C. Moritz and S.E. Williams. 2006. Habitat history improves prediction of biodiversity in a rainforest fauna. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'', 103: 632–636.

References

External links

Personal homepage
at the EPFL
Personal CV
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Catherine H. Stony Brook University faculty American women scientists Living people American ornithologists American women ornithologists American ecologists American women ecologists 1970 births Eckerd College alumni University of Missouri–St. Louis alumni American women academics 21st-century American women