Olá! My name is Lucas P. Medeiros and I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Fisheries Collaborative Program at UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries working with Stephan Munch and Eric Palkovacs. I am originally from Brazil and received a B.S. in Biology and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of São Paulo (USP). I also obtained a Master’s in Ecology from USP under the supervision of Paulo R. Guimarães Jr. and a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT under the supervision of Serguei Saavedra.

My research revolves around understanding how ecological communities and their constituent species respond to perturbations. To do so, I develop approaches based on dynamical systems theory and empirical dynamic modeling to learn about responses to perturbations directly from abundance time-series data. I am also interested in data-driven theoretical approaches as a way to forecast and manage natural populations. My hope is that this research can be applied to better conserve and manage ecological communities in the face of stronger and more frequent human-driven perturbations. In addition to my current research, I have also worked on a structural stability approach to understand changes in community composition and on coevolutionary dynamics in networks of interacting species. Check out the Research and Publications tabs or get in contact if you would like to know more about my research!