Paige Kouba

As a forest researcher, I am broadly curious about how trees both respond to and shape their environment, across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Currently, I am working with Professors Emma Holmström and Urban Nilsson to study species selection and pre-commercial thinning in Swedish forests.

Pronouns: she/her. How to pronounce my name: page (like in a book); koba (rhymes with boba)

My research uses past forest reconstructions and field-based climate change experiments to describe forest-ecosystem feedbacks through time. I completed my PhD at UC Davis in 2024, studying how climate and fire shape California forests, from leaves to landscapes.

While leading research teams and teaching courses in forest ecology and general biology, I developed a lot of questions about how to best support my students and mentees. Last year, I worked for the FUTURE in Biology program at UC Santa Cruz, leading a project about how field-based courses affect student social networks. 

Here at SLU, I am lucky to join a vibrant community of researchers in the Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre. My projects concern the growth, performance, and management of tree species in northern Sweden, as well as the effects of soil moisture on forest biodiversity and carbon cycling in wetland forests of the south.

Courses I Have Taught:

Ecology 290, QE Support Group Workshop and Seminar – UC Davis, Spring 2024; 134 students (Lead Organizer)

Environmental Science and Policy 001, Environmental Analysis & Policy – UC Davis, Fall 2023; ~300 students (Teaching Assistant)

Plant Sciences 147L, California Plant Communities Field Course – UC Davis, Spring 2023; 60 students (Teaching Assistant)

Environmental Science and Policy 100, General Ecology – UC Davis, Fall 2022; 120 students (Instructor of Record)

Evolution and Ecology 101, Introductory Ecology – UC Davis, Spring and Summer 2022; 196, 59 students (Instructor of Record)

Environmental Science and Policy 100, General Ecology – UC Davis, Fall 2020, 2021; ~120 students (Teaching Assistant)

Ecology 290, Dendroecology Graduate Seminar – UC Davis, Winter 2020; ~12 students (Lead Organizer)

Plant Sciences 144, Trees and Forests – UC Davis, Fall 2019 (Teaching Assistant); 120 students

Science of the Physical Universe 25, Climate-Energy Vision for the Future – Harvard University, Spring 2018; 80 students (Teaching Assistant)

Science of the Physical Universe 29, Climate Energy Challenge – Harvard University, Fall 2017, 2020; ~60 students (Teaching Assistant)

Peer Learning Communities:

Learning from colleagues and near-peers is an important way to expand and enrich course-based curriculum. In my final year at UC Davis, I created Milestone to Stepping Stone: the QE Support Group. This course brought together 134 graduate students from 39 Ph.D.-granting programs from across campus, helping to demystify the Qualifying Exam which students must take to advance to PhD candidacy. By pairing pre-QE students with post-candidacy mentors, and connecting them within a network of peers, the course fostered more equitable sharing of information about one of the toughest challenges of a doctoral program. 

As a postdoc at UC Santa Cruz, in collaboration with Dr. Lucas Godoy, I started a new iteration of the Statistics Support Group. We met once a week to discuss a new stats method or question, sharing ideas, advice, and most importantly, encouragement. The group gave members a chance to get help from a friendly audience. In statistics as in life, there are things we don't know, but nothing we can't learn!

Ph.D. – University of California Davis, September 2024

M.Sc. – University of Califonria Davis, December 2021

B.A. – Harvard College, May 2016