Dr. Jose-Luis Machado is a plant physiological ecologist and soil biogeochemist. He holds a Ph.D. in Forest Resources from the University of Minnesota and an M.S. in Botany from the University of Vermont. At Swarthmore College, he teaches courses including Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning, Fundamentals of Ecology, and Organismal and Population Biology.

 

Dr. Machado’s current research connects plant physiological ecology and soil science, focusing on soil organic matter dynamics and microbial communities in the Colombian Páramo, in collaboration with Penn State researchers and supported by an NSF Biodiversity on a Changing Planet grant (BoCP-Design). He is exploring how climate change impacts the functional diversity of soil microbial communities in these carbon-rich environments.

 

Alongside his field research, Dr. Machado leads collaborative ecological education efforts. He played a key role in founding and launching the Ecological Research as Education Network (EREN) and has been part of the leadership team for Macrosystems Ecology for All (MEFA) since 2020. MEFA is an NSF-funded Research Coordination Network that incorporates macrosystems principles and NEON datasets into undergraduate curricula, with a specific emphasis on promoting diversity and inclusion in the sciences.