New Subject Editor: Jessica Blois
18 March 2015
Jessica Blois— Biography
Dr Jessica Blois is an Assistant Professor in Life and Environmental Sciences at UC Merced. Dr Blois received her undergraduate degree in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from the University of California, San Diego and then worked for a few years as a biological technician for the US Forest Service in Oregon and California. She then went on for graduate work, first to earn her M.A. in Biological Sciences from Humboldt State University in 2005, then her PhD in Biology from Stanford University in 2009. She worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison before moving to a faculty position at UC Merced in January 2013.
Dr Blois is a paleoecologist interested in understanding the factors contributing to changes in genes, species and communities across time and space. She combines field work, ancient and modern DNA to understand how genetic diversity is structured spatiotemporally, and paleobiogeographic modeling, with particular interests in teasing apart the roles of environmental versus biotic drivers of biodiversity change. Most of her work is on small mammals and vegetation over the last 21 000 years in North America.