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Lisa M. Kennedy

Associate Professor
Lisa M. Kennedy
232 Wallace Hall (0115)
295 West Campus Drive
Blacksburg, VA
24061
kennedy1@vt.edu
540-231-1422

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. 

Areas of Expertise:

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

Education:

  • Ph.D. University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 2003
  • M.S. University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 1998
  • B.A. Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, 1992
  • Introduction to Physical Geography (1104)
  • Earth Transformed (2994)
  • Tracking Environmental Change (4224, 5224)
  • Graduate Topics courses (5444, 5224) on research interests
  • Troy Swift. 2023. Ph.D. Integration of geospatial and environmental analysis to track landscape dynamics in a perched montane peat bog (WV, USA), reconstruct vital parameters of a landfalling hurricane (FL/AL), and evaluate a potential UNESCO Global Geopark (WI).
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy
  • Cole Bristow. 2023. M.S. The effects of road infrastructure, land cover, and landscape on roadkill patterns in Montgomery County, Virginia.
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy
  • Daniel Donahoe. 2022. M.S. Leveraging the Landsat Archive to Track Understory Evergreen Shrub Expansions in the Coweeta Basin, North Carolina.
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy
  • Ryley Harris. 2020. M.S. Spatial Patterns on Virginia's Second Highest Peak: Land Cover Dynamics and Tree Mortality in Two Rare Ecosystems.
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy
  • Allison LeBlanc. 2018. Ph.D. Lake Sediment-Based Reconstructions of Late-Holocene Lowland Environments on Dominican Republic and Barbuda, Northern Caribbean.
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy
  • Rachael Lubitz. 2015. M.S. A Late Holocene Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction of a Coastal Lake in Northeastern Dominican Republic.
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy
  • Haitao Wang. 2014. M.S. Monitoring Vegetation Dynamics in Zhongwei, an Arid City of Northwest China.
    Professor(s): Lisa Kennedy and Yang Shao
  • LeBlanc, A. R., Kennedy, L. M., Burn, M. J., Bain, A., & Perdikaris, S. (2024). Human-driven fire and vegetation dynamics on the Caribbean island of Barbuda from early indigenous to modern times. The Holocene, 34(8), 1051-1061. 
    https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836241247298
  • Reid, R., Harman, P., Kennedy, L., Orndorff, W., & Langwig, K. (2023). Preliminary Bat Guano Isotope Evidence for Past Vegetation and Climate Change in Southwest Virginia. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History, 60(2), 106. https://doi.org/10.58782/flmnh.azyz6465
  • Harris, R. C., Kennedy, L. M., Pingel, T. J., & Thomas, V. A. (2022). Assessment of Canopy Health with Drone-Based Orthoimagery in a Southern Appalachian Red Spruce Forest. Remote Sensing, 14(6), 1341.
    https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14061341
  • Swift, T. P., & Kennedy, L. M. (2021). Beaver-Driven Peatland Ecotone Dynamics: Impoundment Detection Using Lidar and Geomorphon Analysis. Land, 10(12), 1333. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10121333
  • Bhuta A.A.R., Kennedy, L.M. (20121) Woody Plant Dynamics in a Foundation Conifer Woodland of the Appalachian Foothills, Alabama. Southeastern Naturalist 20(3), 498-520
    https://doi.org/10.1656/058.020.0313
  • Shao, Y., Wan, H., Rosenman, A., Laso, F.J., Kennedy, L.M. (2020). Evaluating Land Cover Change on the Island of Santa Cruz, Galapagos Archipelago of Ecuador Through Cloud-Gap Filling and Multi-sensor Analysis. In: Walsh, S.J., Riveros-Iregui, D., Arce-Nazario, J., Page, P.H. (eds) Land Cover and Land Use Change on Islands. Social and Ecological Interactions in the Galapagos Islands. Springer, Cham.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43973-6_7
  • *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.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-017-9965-z
  • 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.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2017.1345115
  • 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. 
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-017-9943-5
  • *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.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12189
  • *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. 
    https://doi.org/10.3390/land2030493
  • *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.
    https://doi.org/10.3375/043.029.0403
  • *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. 
    https://doi.org/10.3959/2008-17.1
  • Kennedy, LM, Horn SP. (2008), A late Holocene pollen and charcoal record from La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Biotropica 40 (1), 11-19. 
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7429.2007.00334.x
  • Kennedy, LM, Horn, SP. (2008), Postfire Vegetation Recovery in Highland Pine Forests of the Dominican Republic. Biotropica, 40: 412–421.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7429.2007.00394.x
  • 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.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2005.08.002

*Indicates student collaborator

Research Profile