Research area
Our research addresses global change ecology. We are interested to generate a fundamental understanding of the ecological processes that determine global climate conditions. This is motivated by the need to better understand climate change by incorporating an understanding of ecological systems into global biogeochemical models, and to identify meaningful strategies for managing natural ecosystems to address climate change. Our research is therefore highly interdisciplinary, including aspects of community ecology, ecophysiology, ecosystem ecology, remote sensing ecology and Earth System modeling. We use a combination of genetic, physiological and mathmatical modeling approaches to identify fine-scale ecological mechanisms, and we subsequently use a combination of remote sensing, geospatial analyses, Earth System modeling to extrapolate ecological this information to the global scale identify their relevance for current and future climate.

The fundamental research in our lab has is intended to guide environmental decision making. Most terrestrial carbon is stored belowground in the soil, and aboveground in forest trees. As such, we study interactions between the different components within these ecosystems to better inform our understanding of current and future changes in terrestrial carbon storage. This can directly inform international conservation and restoration efforts by identifying the most important regions to focus in order to have the most effective impacts on climate change and global biodiversity loss.

Academic society memberships
British Ecological Society
Ecological Society of America
Soil Ecology Society
Mycological Society of America
Outreach & other Scholarly activities:
Held a popular Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), which received over 10,000 up-votes and 700
questions, and reached the front page of Reddit. DOI: 10.15200/winn.148612.26272
Expert witness for ‘Western Environmental Law Center’, USA – most notable contributions
include a written declaration in support of the proposed ‘Clean air Rule’ used in the lawsuit
against the Washington State Department of Ecology (2016).
Ambassador for Zig Zag Zoom: a children’s video game established to promote
environmental stewardship and to plant a million trees worldwide.
THOMAS WARD CROWTHER
Curriculum Vitae
Presented on the trillion-tree project at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) UK branch in
April 2016.
Presented on the trillion-tree project at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Netherlands
branch in March 2016.
Presented at the Plant for the Planet Youth Summit (2015). Invited by Felix Finkbeiner.
Presented at the ‘Women Leaders in Green Careers’ workshop at the Yale School of
Forestry & Environmental Studies (2015).
Judge for the Poster presentation award at the International Association for Ecology
Conference (2013), and the PhD talk competition at the BES annual meeting (2014).
Chair for the ‘Above-ground below-ground interactions’ session at the International
Association for Ecology Conference (2013).
Volunteer tutor at New Haven Reads, New Haven, USA (2012-2013)
Stem Ambassador for Cardiff University, Wales (2011-2012)
Notable non-academic achievements:
Tennis: 2001 Welsh National tennis champion under 16 and under 18. Represented North
Wales men’s team from 2001-present. First team varsity tennis for Cardiff University.
Football: First team varsity football for Cardiff University.
Running: Completed the Baystate Marathon (Massachusetts, USA) in 2013, and the Cardiff
half marathon in 2011.
2017: ESA Soil Ecology Society Early Career Award.
2017: Invited speaker to participate in the Global Soil Carbon and Climate Change Symposium
The FAO headquarters in Rome.
2015-2017: European Commission H2020, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Personal Scholarship Funding
(187,112 euros).
2016: The three main author papers recognized by Altmetric are ranked in the top 1% of all scientific fields
Papers on media attention and influence scored 1,656, 1109, and 749, respectively.
2012: Teaching award: Elected as a STEM ambassador for Cardiff University.
2011: Anne Kaymer Award for Best Doctoral Speech by the British Ecological Society