Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies

Microorganisms are the proximate drivers of terrestrial carbon cycling. Yet, we know relatively little about the controllers of microbial distributions, diversity, composition, or function. Dr. Kivlin's research addresses these fundamental questions of microbial ecology with an overarching goal of linking these processes to large-scale ecosystem fluxes of carbon and nutrients under current and future climates. Her lab takes a multidisciplinary genes-to-ecosystems approach, integrating microbial traits and gene expression with population demographics, community assembly, and overall ecosystem carbon storage.

Keynote speaker on Saturday, February 22nd, 2025.

https://eeb.utk.edu/people/stephanie-kivlin/

Associate Professor

Recent research in education and cognitive psychology has led to a better understanding of how students learn, and this has instigated national calls to reform the way biology is taught at the undergraduate level. Dr. Aikens's research focuses on understanding how self-beliefs and values related to motivation influence achievement and persistence in undergraduate biology students. She is particularly interested in biology majors' motivation to learn quantitative skills, such as statistics and mathematical modeling. Mathematics can induce disinterest and anxiety in students, which can lead to disengagement on quantitative tasks. Dr. Aikens ultimately seeks to understand how students' educational experiences in quantitative biology affect their self-efficacy and personal values, their performance , and their choices to take additional quantitative biology courses.

Keynote speaker on Friday, February 21st, 2025.