Principal Investigators
Alex Alexiades Ph.D
Dr. Alex Alexiades studied Biology with a focus in Fish and Wildlife Management at Montana State University, Bozeman where he graduated magna cum laude in 2003. After graduating, he pursued his passion for teaching and climbing around the world for four years, living and working in 5 different countries on three continents. He returned to the USA in 2007 to work as an ice climbing and glacier guide in Alaska, before he began a M.S. program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno. While in Reno, Alex was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Partners Fellow, enabling him to assist local high school AP Biology courses with their lab programs. In 2011, he began his PhD in Ecosystem Biology at Cornell University with dissertation research focusing on fisheries and aquatic ecology, water resource issues, statistical and spatial modeling and mapping, and stream biogeochemistry. Alex spent the 2014-2015 academic year living in Ecuador as Fulbright Fellow where he conducted research on the flow-ecology and effects of water withdrawals on the aquatic fauna in Napo River Basin. Alex completed his PhD in 2015 then spent the summer as an invited faculty instructor at the Central South University of Forestry and Technology in Changsha, China. He started at Heritage University as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science in Fall 2015. Since arriving at Heritage, Dr. Alexiades has published several peer-reviewed science articles and serves as the PI for the NSF i-NATURE and First Nations MESA programs to increase STEM opportunities for Native American students. He has a passion for social justice and creating pathways to higher education for underrepresented minorities. Apart from his academic pursuits, Alex is also a competitive ultra-endurance mountain bike racer for Chumba Cycles USA and Wanderlust Gear and a Contributing Editor at Bikepacker Magazine.
Gwynn Johnson Ph.D
Gwynn Johnson is an example of the kind of enthusiasm for teaching and research that makes PSU faculty extraordinary. She is passionate about teaching and working with students, and she strives to help them realize the power of analytical and critical thinking.
While earning her B.S. and M.E., Johnson worked for Environmental Consulting & Technology in Gainesville, Florida, and Larsen and Associates in Miami, Florida. Her field experience inspired her to attain her Ph.D. at the University of Arizona, and she joined PSU's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2002 after completing her post-doctoral work.
An expert in groundwater hydrology, subsurface contaminant transport and fate, environmental chemistry, Johnson fits in perfectly with PSU's strong environmental and engineering faculty.
Johnson is establishing herself as a practical and imaginative scientist. "So far my favorite project was at Hill Air Force Base in Salt Lake City, Utah, where we investigated novel techniques for cleaning up a complex mixture of wastes, trapped in the subsurface. The most unusual cosolvent we tried was beer."
On campus, Johnson advises student members of the Society of Women Engineers. She believes it is important "to serve as a role model for young women in what traditionally has been a male-dominated profession."
Olyssa Starry Ph.D
Olyssa Starry is an associate professor at Portland State University where she teaches urban ecology and other related courses in the Honors College. She also serves as faculty mentor to the College's sustainability scholars and has advised numerous honors thesis projects. Professor Starry studies ecoroofs as model systems for understanding how design and management decisions affect the ecological, social, and political functions of urban open spaces. More specifically, her current externally funded projects address how ecoroof design can affect human health by influencing air quality and also by providing horticultural therapy. Previous publications have explored local and global patterns ecoroof biodiversity using beetles as indicator species as well as the role of plants in the ecoroof water cycle.
Elise Granek Ph.D
Elise Granek is an applied coastal ecologist whose research focuses on how coastal and subtidal habitats and humans interact in terms of biotic and abiotic processes. Much of her lab group’s research examines the effects of human disturbance to one system (e.g., mangroves forests, terrestrial watersheds) on functioning and community composition of nearby downstream ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs, intertidal/subtidal rocky habitat). As we design reserves to protect specific habitat types, to what extent do we need to consider adjacent systems and habitat features? And how are our inputs of pharmaceuticals and microplastics affecting coastal marine species?
Dr. Erin Shortlidge
Dr. Erin Shortlidge is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Portland State University. Her PhD in Biology focused on investigating the eco-physiological factors that influence reproductive success in mosses. In this work Dr. Shortlidge conducted field work across the Portland, OR area, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. Although her love of mosses remains, in her postdoc she shifted her focus to biology education research and has not turned back.
She currently leads the Biology Education Research Group at PSU. Her group broadly focuses on best practices in teaching and learning biology and on improving access to equitable STEM education and relevant research opportunities. Specifically the group focuses on course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), graduate teaching assistants, interdisciplinary science, and understanding sense of belonging in STEM. She is the PI of an S-STEM grant (NSF DUE S-STEM Award #1742542) to support low-income, high achieving transfer students to earn their STEM degrees at PSU. Dr. Shortlidge teaches Scientific Teaching, Graduate Prospectus, Principles of Biology, and the Science in Social Context Cluster course, STEM Research: Working to Solve Today's Big Problems. Dr. Shortlidge is excited to be working with the EAGLES team to better understand how the program can promote factors that lead to persistence and belonging in STEM.