Leena Vilonen, Executive Director of Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, School of Global and Environmental Sustainability, Colorado State University, September 19, 2023
Leena Vilonen earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Northwestern University in 2016 and her Ph.D. from Colorado State University in 2022. She is excited to be back at CSU and working with the GSBI. Her research from her Ph.D. aimed to understand how global change drivers, such as drought, impact resistance and resilience of the soil microbial community (bacteria and fungi) in grasslands using amplicon sequencing. Her research largely focused on understanding the legacy effects of drought (responses post-disturbance) and how to define the term legacy effects.