Heidi Steltzer

Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

Fort Lewis College

steltzer_h@fortlewis.edu

Fort Collins , Colorado 80523

Dr. Heidi Steltzer is an ecosystem ecologist. Her research program aims to understand the effects of global environmental changes on the provisioning of key ecosystem services that plants provide for human well-being through their effects on ecosystem structure and function. Her post-secondary education includes a BS in biology from Duke University in 1994 and a PhD in ecosystem ecology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1999. Since 2000, Heidi has worked at CSU in the Forestry Department and in the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory. Her research in the alpine has aimed to characterize a mechanism by which alpine plants increase ecosystem nitrogen retention with implications for water quality and soil fertility in mountain and agricultural ecosystems. In the Arctic, her research has focused on plant response to global environmental changes, including an assessment of species effects on ecosystem function. Heidi has taught Forest Ecology, Arctic and Alpine Biogeography and Biogeochemistry, and co-organized a seminar series on Diversity in Science and Academia. She is involved in community outreach by serving on the Environmental Advisory Board for Larimer County and on the Board of Directors for the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies in Silverton, CO.