Lisa M. Kennedy

Research Interests:

• Long-term environmental change
• Biogeography
• Vegetation dynamics
• Fire history and ecology
• Human-environment interactions
• Tropical America, Caribbean, Appalachians/US southeast.

Research Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lisa_Kennedy6

Dr. Kennedy and her students and collaborators document long-term environmental history, such as vegetation dynamics, shifts in fire patterns, climatic fluctuations, and human-environment interactions across millennial time scales through analysis of proxy data, such as pollen/spores and charcoal fragments, preserved in lake and wetland sediments from the Caribbean and other tropical environments, the southeastern US, and the Appalachians. Dr. Kennedy and collaborators also apply vegetation sampling, dendrochronology (study of tree rings), and analysis of satellite imagery and other geospatial data to document more recent environmental change across decades and centuries. 

Recent Courses:

• Graduate Topics courses (5444, 5224) on research interests
• Introduction to Physical Geography (1104)
• Earth Transformed (2994)
• Tracking Environmental Change (4224, 5224)
  

Recent Publications

• *LeBlanc, AR, Kennedy, LM, Liu, KB, Lane CS. (2017), Linking hurricane landfalls, precipitation variability, fires, and vegetation response over the past millennium from analysis of coastal lagoon sediments, southwestern Dominican Republic. Journal of Paleolimnology 58 (2), 135-150.
• Bain, A, *Faucher, AM, Kennedy, LM, *LeBlanc, AR, Burn, MJ, Boger, R, Perdikaris, S. (2017), Landscape transformation during Ceramic Age and Colonial occupations of Barbuda, West Indies. Environmental Archaeology, 1-11.
• Lane, CS, *Hildebrandt, B, Kennedy, LM, *LeBlanc, A, Liu, KB, Wagner, AJ. (2017), Verification of tropical cyclone deposits with oxygen isotope analyses of coeval ostracod valves. Journal of Paleolimnology 57 (3), 245-255.
• *White, J, Kennedy, LM, Christie, ME. (2017), Do perceptions of the Red‐tailed Hawk indicate a human‐wildlife conflict on the island of La Gonave, Haiti? Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 38 (2), 258-268.
• *White, J, Shao, Y, Kennedy, LM, Campbell, JB. (2013), Landscape dynamics on the island of La Gonave, Haiti, 1990–2010. Land 2 (3), 493-507.
• *Crawford, CJ, Kennedy, LM. (2009), Spatial and temporal patterns of tree encroachment into a Southern Appalachian grass/heath bald using tree rings. Natural Areas Journal 29 (4), 367-375.
• *Bhuta, AAR, Kennedy, LM, Pederson, N. (2009), Climate-radial growth relationships of northern latitudinal range margin longleaf pine (Pinus palustris P. Mill.) in the Atlantic Coastal Plain of Southeastern Virginia. Tree-Ring Research 65 (2), 105-115.
• Kennedy, LM, Horn SP. (2008), A late Holocene pollen and charcoal record from La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Biotropica 40 (1), 11-19.
• Kennedy, LM, Horn, SP. (2008), Postfire Vegetation Recovery in Highland Pine Forests of the Dominican Republic. Biotropica, 40: 412–421.
• Kennedy, LM, Horn SP, Orvis KH. (2006), A 4000-year record of fire and forest history from Valle de Bao, Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 231 (3-4), 279-290.
• *Indicates student collaborator