Dr. Claudia Nuñez-Penichet

POSTDOCTORAL NETWORK  |   Global Change Center

Postdoctoral Associate

Faculty Mentor:  Dr. Haldre Rogers

Fish and Wildlife Conservation

claudianunez@ku.edu

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Dr. Nuñez-Penichet is an entomologist and macroecologist. She is associated to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation department at Virginia Tech, working as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Haldre Rogers. Her research interests include a spectrum of inquiries into biodiversity patterns and their implications in a rapidly changing world. Her core areas of expertise center around the study of invasive species, distributional and dispersal ecology, and conservation biology. At Virginia Tech, in collaboration with the Invasive Species Collaborative (ISC), she will apply ecological modeling and simulation methods to investigate areas in Virginia that can be susceptible to the invasion of fleshy-fruiting plants and their native and invasive dispersers. Her research will be instrumental for the implementation of early actions to prevent, monitor, and mitigate effects from invasive plant species in the state.

Dr. Nuñez-Penichet was a postdoc at the University of Kansas, where she also received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She received her master’s and bachelor’s degree from the Havana University (Cuba). Her past research projects focused on understanding invasive species, their potential distributions, and invasion pathways, as well as potential effects of such species on native and cultivated taxa. She has used several methods and techniques to investigate the ecology and migratory patterns of Urania moths. Her experience with data analysis and programming has allowed her to work on diverse biogeographic, ecological, and evolutionary questions, with tools drawn from ecological modeling, simulation, and big-data challenges.

More generally, Dr. Nuñez-Penichet is committed to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in research, teaching, and service. She is an advocate of communicating science and building DEI in STEM disciplines at various educational levels and from diverse perspectives to educate and engage scientists, the broader community, and policymakers.