Faculty Spotlight: Andrea Westerband
Andrea C Westerband (she/her), PhD joined the Department of Biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as an Assistant Professor in Ecology and Evolution in August 2024. Her primary research interests are in plant ecophysiololgy, plant ecology, and population biology, and she currently teaches plant physiology, plant functional biology, and field methods. Dr. Westerband lived the early part of her life in New York City, but spent her formative years in Puerto Rico before moving back to the continental United States to pursue a BS in Environmental Biology at the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. In 2016, she earned a PhD in Biology at the University of Miami, followed by three postdoctoral research positions: first in Hawaii (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2016-2018) and then Australia (Macquarie University [2018-2022] and Western Sydney University [2022-2024]).
Dr. Westerband and her research group study how plant morphological, physiological, chemical and life history traits are coordinated with one another across a plant’s life cycle, and how this influences individual performance but also species interactions, population dynamics, and ecosystem properties. The Westerband Lab combines large-scale field campaigns with manipulative experiments to understand how environmentally-driven trait variation influences plant growth, survival, and reproduction, i.e. components of evolutionary fitness. Her recent work examines how traits are coordinated with one another across environments but also over time, and how coordination shapes fundamental biological processes such as photosynthesis and respiration. The aim is to build an integrative framework for understanding the mechanisms by which natural environments mediate plant population dynamics.
Dr. Westerband is also deeply committed to science education and outreach, and is committed to fostering inclusion and diversity within the sciences but also her local community.
Contact Dr. Westerband or learn more through these links:
andrea.westerband@louisiana.edu
The Westerband Lab website
Andrea Westerband’s University website
Andrea Westerband’s Twitter Page
Andrea Westerband’s Google Scholar