Cur­rent:

Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Depart­ment of Land, Air, and Water Resources, UC Davis

Uni­ver­si­ty web­site: http://​lawr​.ucdavis​.edu/​p​e​o​p​l​e​/​f​a​c​u​l​t​y​/​h​e​r​n​a​n​d​e​z​-​r​e​b​e​cca

Rebec­ca R. Her­nan­dez, Ph.D.
UC Pres­i­den­t’s Post­doc­tor­al Fel­low 
Ener­gy and Resources Group, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley
Cli­mate and Car­bon Sci­ences Pro­gram, Earth Sci­ences Divi­sion, Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Laboratory

Per­son­al web­site: www​.rebec​ca​rher​nan​dez​.com

Con­nect with me: Google Schol­ar, Research­Gate

My work exam­ines process­es where human and nat­ur­al sys­tems inter­act and those that elu­ci­date the func­tion­ing of the Earth sys­tem. Answer­ing pure eco­log­i­cal research ques­tions and solv­ing crit­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems through applied work are impor­tant to me. My research pro­gram to date is com­prised of three inter­con­nect­ed themes:

1 | Ener­gy Geog­ra­phy and Devel­op­ment  –  My ener­gy research is moti­vat­ed by the belief that every human should have access to ener­gy in a man­ner that is sus­tain­able with the Earth sys­tem. I study the inter­sec­tion between ener­gy devel­op­ment and the envi­ron­ment, and par­tic­u­lar­ly how solar ener­gy can be deployed to reduce green­house gas emis­sions, water deficits, and land-cov­er change. I am inter­est­ed in elu­ci­dat­ing how renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment can be real­ized at pol­i­cy-rel­e­vant timescales to address issues of ener­gy inse­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate change, and glob­al envi­ron­men­tal change.

 2 | Glob­al Change in Arid­lands – My glob­al change research is moti­vat­ed by the fact that over one-third (41%) of Earth’s ter­res­tri­al sur­face is arid, semi­arid, or dry-sub­hu­mid. Togeth­er, these water-stressed bio­mes sup­port 38% of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion. Arid­lands have been iden­ti­fied as high­ly vul­ner­a­ble to glob­al change-type threats and yet they remain vast­ly under­stud­ied despite their impor­tance for ecosys­tem ser­vices that humans depend on. I am inter­est­ed in impacts, mit­i­ga­tion, and pri­or­i­ties of glob­al change-type threats on var­i­ous com­po­nents of arid­land ecosystems.

3 | Soil Ecol­o­gy and Bio­geo­chem­istry – My soil ecol­o­gy research is moti­vat­ed by the fact that soils are the most under­stud­ied com­po­nent of the Earth sys­tem and yet have enor­mous impacts on its func­tion. My research seeks to under­stand the micro­bial ecol­o­gy and bio­geo­chem­istry of soils, espe­cial­ly how soil car­bon moves in soils across time and space, and what fac­tors lead to these changes. One such fac­tor includes the role of plants that form sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ships with myc­or­rhizal fun­gi, which in turn cre­ate vast under­ground net­works of car­bon through­out the soil ecosystem.