2025 Keynote Speaker

What are the trees telling us? Tree Rings, Climate Change, & Coastal Forests

Dr. Nicole K. Davi
Professor, William Paterson University
Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Three-Ring Laboratory at
​Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Dr. ​Nicole K. Davi is a Professor in the Environmental Science Department at William Paterson University. She is also an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Tree-Ring Laboratory at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Davi is a paleoclimate scientist focused on the development and interpretation of tree-ring records and has a background in physical geography. Her research focuses on understanding climate variability, dynamics and forcing on time scales ranging from years to millennia, as well as understanding the impacts of climate variability on ecosystems and people. Davi has developed tree-ring records that have documented the history of late Holocene drought across Central Asia as well as warming across the northern latitudes, particularly in the circum-Arctic. Currently, she is building a field program focused on Northeast coastal forests with the aim of reconstructing tropical cyclone frequency and severity recorded in these unique maritime forests. She has authored/co-authored numerous peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals and she has authored many more published abstracts, many with students as lead authors or co-authors. During her career she has been awarded more than $3 million through federal and private funding agencies. Davi also has several projects that focus on improving science literacy for undergraduate and K-12 students, and also for public audiences. Davi often collaborates with artists to explore new and compelling ways to communicate the excitement of scientific explorations with diverse audiences.