Mickey Chen

I am interested in understanding the feedback cycle between wildfire regimes (e.g., paleofires) and vegetation during a period of rapid climate warming in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition period approximately 18,000 years ago.

My work is focused on the Alaska-Yukon region (collectively referred to as Eastern Beringia), which was unglaciated during the last ice age. On this unglaciated landscape, Late Quaternary megafauna fed on a nutrient rich steppe-like biome until its gradual replacement by advancing boreal forests. It is possible that wildfire, acting as an agent of climate warming, played an important role in the replacement of ancient steppe with boreal forests. Understanding the cascading effects of re-vegetation in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions during the last major warming event will be critical to better evaluate future environmental trends, which can impact weather patterns and alter the viability of human habitation in various communities around the globe.

Prior to my current work, my research was focused on bioarchaeology during my MSc and chemistry in my BSc.

Publications 

Chen, M.H.Y., Kendall, I.R., Evershed, R., Bogaard, A., Styring, A.K., 2023, Reconstructing herbivore diets: a multivariate statistical approach to interpreting compound specific isotope values, Oecologia, 201, 599-608.

Zhang, Z., Chen, M., Alem, S., Tao Y., Chu T-Y., Xiao G., Ramful, C., 2022, Printed flexible capacitive humidity sensors for field application, Sensors Actuators B: Chemical, 359, 131620.

Miron, C.E., van Staalduinen, L., Rangaswampy, A.M., Chen, M., Liang, Y., Jia, Z., Mergny, J., Petitjean, A.., 2021, Going Platinum to the Tune of a Record-high Affinity Guanine Quadruplex Binder: Solution- and Solid-State Investigations, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 60, 2500-2587.