People
Jody Reimer
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics & School of Biological Sciences
Jody is interested in all things mathematical and quantitative ecology, from data-driven questions about specific systems to more general problems in ecological theory. She tends to gravitate towards modeling life in extreme environments such as the polar regions and Great Salt Lake, Utah. When she's not modeling the natural world, she loves running, skiing, biking, and paddling through its less explored corners.
Graduate Students
Abby Hardin-Kohli
Abby is a 3rd-year PhD student in the Mathematics Department, working in ecological modeling. She's specifically interested in rate-induced tipping, ecological management, and forecasting. When she's not doing math, you'll often find her playing board games, hitting the climbing gym, or cuddling her cat.
Anthony Jajeh
Anthony is a 4th-year Mathematics Ph.D. student at the University of Utah. He is interested in studying the process of EPS production in sea ice through data analytics, fluid dynamics, PDEs, and ODEs. In his free time, he likes to hang out with friends and go to jiu-jitsu.
Lauren Whelton
Lauren is a 2nd-year Biology Ph.D. Student, working on modeling microbial community dynamics of the microbialites of Great Salt Lake. To better understand how this key piece of the benthic food chain will respond to lake desiccation, Lauren is synthesizing field work and modeling techniques to construct the first known microbial interaction network for the microbialites. She is also interested in understanding the process of microbialite recovery following a desiccation event. In her free time, you will find her crocheting or watching trashy reality TV, all while cuddling her cats!
Undergraduate Students
Rylie Gagne
Rylie is a fourth-year student working towards a Data Science degree. She is passionate about exploring the natural world using data and mathematics while effectively communicating data through visualizations. Outside of academia, she enjoys attending live music, spending time outside, and knitting a vast collection of sweaters.
Jessie Kalinowski
Jessie is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in applied mathematics. Her research interests lie in developing models to better understand polar bear movements, with a strong passion for effective science communication. Outside of her studies, Jessie spends her time snacking in the mountains.
Kaitlyn Landers
Kaitlyn is a third-year student pursuing a degree in Biology with a minor in chemistry. She is interested in modeling bird populations at Great Salt Lake. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and traveling.
Lucy Leary
Lucy is a second-year honors undergraduate student majoring in math and minoring in integrated health and ecology, cognitive science, and computer science. She plays ultimate frisbee for the University of Utah's women's ultimate frisbee team, and for fun she likes handlettering and teaching her dog new tricks. She works for the Marriott Library, the Math Tutoring Center, the Honors College Peer-Mentoring program, and Austin Green's Wildlife Coexistance lab.
Kathy (Zhiyao) Lin
Kathy is an undergraduate student in the Mathematics Department with a strong research interest in modeling the dynamics of microbial communities in the Arctic. Her previous work involved plotting the complex permittivity of sea ice and brine inclusions containing algae and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Currently, she is developing dynamic models to better understand microbial interactions with their environment, aiming to uncover insights into their ecological roles and their responses to changing environmental conditions.
Chance Moran
Chance is a third-year honors undergraduate student majoring in mathematics with an emphasis in statistics and minoring in computer science and Spanish. He is passionate about the application of data science and statistics to ecology and hopes to further explore this intersection. When not doing math, he enjoys reading, gardening, playing board games, and learning new languages.
Other affiliated lab members
Hannah Meier
Hannah is a second-year PhD student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology advised by Jon Wang, but she hangs out with the Reimer lab too. Her research interest lies in understanding how the drying of the Great Salt Lake has changed and will change aspects of the lake's microbiota. To do this her work will incorporate field, laboratory, modeling, and remote sensing techniques. In her free time, Hannah can be found playing pinball, cooking, reading, or working on puzzles of any kind.
Alumni
- Nathan Gregor - biology undergraduate researcher - Eared Grebes of Great Salt Lake
- Nicole Forrester - ACCESS student - Optimal polar bear movement across patchy sea ice
- Kitty Saravanan - ACCESS student - Modeling the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
- Grant Poulsen - math honors thesis - First passage times of long transients in ecology [21]
- Linda Zhao - mathbio education project - Integrated STEM - Polar Bear Math and Science (for Polar Bears International).