[Sehefac] Join us! Urban food forests: nature based solutions in cities

[samantha.ying at ucr.edu]

Good evening SEHE colleagues,

Our department is hosting Joy Winbourne, assistant professor from UMass
Lowell, and I thought her work may be of great interest to some of you.
There are still 30-min available slots
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Ud2z1OAh41o4KgG722fLrltyfILjY7ALZ1xmwDji3M/edit?usp=sharing>
at 9:35am and 11:05 am if you'd like to chat with her!

The full description is below, but here are some highlights:

"*Urban food forests* are a type of green infrastructure increasingly being
proposed in cities because of their potential ability to address the
environmental, social, and economic concerns facing urban dwellers...This
presentation will introduce three research initiatives underway *advancing
understanding and implementation of nature-based solutions*: 1) I will
introduce a new Climate Resilience Center at UML; 2) a new global Urban
Tree Ecophysiology Network; and 3) Ecosystem Service provisioning of urban
food forests in New England."

Please share with your students!

Best wishes,
sam



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Lindsay McCulloch via Envisci-faculty <envisci-faculty at lists.ucr.edu>
Date: Mon, Mar 2, 2026 at 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: [Envisci-faculty] Seminar speaker March 4th, 2026
To: Envisci-faculty <envisci-faculty at lists.ucr.edu>


Dear colleagues,

Just a reminder to sign up to meet with our seminar speaker this week, Dr.
Joy WInbourne. I know folks are very busy with the end of the quarter and
our recruitment but if you can find time - Joy does a lot of great work on
urban ecology, plant physiology, nature-based solutions and
biogeochemistry, that may be of interest to you all.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Ud2z1OAh41o4KgG722fLrltyfILjY7ALZ1xmwDji3M/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you!
Lindsay


*Abstract*: In urban areas, green infrastructure is well recognized for the
suite of ecosystem services they provide to society, including uptake and
retention of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mitigation of stormwater and
nutrient pollution, and cooling of local air temperatures. In the wake of
the COVID-19 pandemic, urban dwellers are also seeking green spaces for
food security, connection, and solace. Urban food forests are a type of
green infrastructure increasingly being proposed in cities because of their
potential ability to address the environmental, social, and economic
concerns facing urban dwellers. The influence trees have on urban climates
and cycling of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, depend on the
biophysical responses of urban vegetation to the unique environmental
conditions of the built environment. The heterogeneous nature of urban
landscapes, unique vegetation assemblages, and land management decisions
make it difficult to predict the spatial and temporal variability in the
ecosystem services provided by urban vegetation. This presentation will
introduce three research initiatives underway advancing understanding and
implementation of nature-based solutions: 1) I will introduce a new Climate
Resilience Center at UML; 2) a new global Urban Tree Ecophysiology Network;
and 3) Ecosystem Service provisioning of urban food forests in New England.


*Bio*: Joy Winbourne an assistant professor in the Department of
Environmental, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at UMass Lowell. Dr.
Winbourne is an ecosystem ecologist and terrestrial biogeochemist. Her
research is focused on understanding how plants and soils regulate the
movement of carbon, nutrients, and water in terrestrial ecosystems under a
variety of human perturbations. In particular, she examines the impact of
urbanization, deforestation, forest fragmentation, and climate change on
terrestrial ecosystem processes. Her research agenda is motivated by the
need for actionable ecological data and theory to inform sustainable
environmental policies and evaluate their efficacy especially in the
context of global climate change. To address these research aims, Dr.
Winbourne integrates field studies, remote sensing, meta-analyses, and
modeling approaches to scale ecosystem processes at the individual soil
core or tree to landscape scales to uncover trends in key services
ecosystems provide human societies. Prior to joining UMass Lowell,
Winbourne was a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston University and Voss
Postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Environment and Society at Brown
University. She holds a PhD in Ecology from the University of California at
Davis.

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 3:22 PM Lindsay McCulloch <
lindsay.mcculloch1 at ucr.edu> wrote:

> Hi everyone, happy Friday!
>
> The link to meet with our next seminar speaker, Dr. Joy Winbourne, can be
> found here:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Ud2z1OAh41o4KgG722fLrltyfILjY7ALZ1xmwDji3M/edit?usp=sharing
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Ud2z1OAh41o4KgG722fLrltyfILjY7ALZ1xmwDji3M/edit?usp=sharing>
>
> I have attached the PDF of her flyer here to this email. Joy does a lot of
> great work on urban vegetation ecology and biogeochemistry. She is also one
> of my collaborators that I hope to work with to bring sap flow sensors here
> to Riverside that we can use in classrooms/labs and capstone projects.
>
> All the best,
> Lindsay
>
> *Abstract*: In urban areas, green infrastructure is well recognized for
> the suite of ecosystem services they provide to society, including uptake
> and retention of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mitigation of stormwater and
> nutrient pollution, and cooling of local air temperatures. In the wake of
> the COVID-19 pandemic, urban dwellers are also seeking green spaces for
> food security, connection, and solace. Urban food forests are a type of
> green infrastructure increasingly being proposed in cities because of their
> potential ability to address the environmental, social, and economic
> concerns facing urban dwellers. The influence trees have on urban climates
> and cycling of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, depend on the
> biophysical responses of urban vegetation to the unique environmental
> conditions of the built environment. The heterogeneous nature of urban
> landscapes, unique vegetation assemblages, and land management decisions
> make it difficult to predict the spatial and temporal variability in the
> ecosystem services provided by urban vegetation. This presentation will
> introduce three research initiatives underway advancing understanding and
> implementation of nature-based solutions: 1) I will introduce a new Climate
> Resilience Center at UML; 2) a new global Urban Tree Ecophysiology Network;
> and 3) Ecosystem Service provisioning of urban food forests in New England.
>
>
>
> *Bio*: Joy Winbourne an assistant professor in the Department of
> Environmental, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at UMass Lowell. Dr.
> Winbourne is an ecosystem ecologist and terrestrial biogeochemist. Her
> research is focused on understanding how plants and soils regulate the
> movement of carbon, nutrients, and water in terrestrial ecosystems under a
> variety of human perturbations. In particular, she examines the impact of
> urbanization, deforestation, forest fragmentation, and climate change on
> terrestrial ecosystem processes. Her research agenda is motivated by the
> need for actionable ecological data and theory to inform sustainable
> environmental policies and evaluate their efficacy especially in the
> context of global climate change. To address these research aims, Dr.
> Winbourne integrates field studies, remote sensing, meta-analyses, and
> modeling approaches to scale ecosystem processes at the individual soil
> core or tree to landscape scales to uncover trends in key services
> ecosystems provide human societies. Prior to joining UMass Lowell,
> Winbourne was a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston University and Voss
> Postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Environment and Society at Brown
> University. She holds a PhD in Ecology from the University of California at
> Davis.
>
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