CECELIA K STOKES

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I am a fourth year Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Botany. I am a member of the Pringle Lab, co-advised by Dr. Anne Pringle and Dr. Michelle Jusino.

My path in science began with efforts to conserve plant biodiversity and threatened landscapes in southern Appalachia. Soon after, I realized how key fungi are in those ecosystems and developed a new passion for fungal biodiversity. This passion drove my pursuit of a doctorate in fungal ecology and evolution.

Broadly, I am interested in how interactions between fungi and other organisms shape and influence the evolutionary trajectories of fungal traits. We are in an era of global change and biodiversity loss and understanding ecological dynamics of fungi within our rapidly changing forests is key to creating realistic conservation frameworks.