Current Team Members
Dr. Kenneth J. Feeley
University of Miami, Department of Biology
Aresty Professor of Tropical Ecology
Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA
Phone: 305-284-5748
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden
11935 Old Cutler Rd.
Coral Gables, FL 33156, USA
Download CV (current as of August 2026)
Current Ph.D. Students (in no particular order)
GABRIELA A. GARCIA-REYNAGA
Gabriela is a Biologist from the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Peru. Her past research focused on studying the eco-morphological traits that shape the interaction network between epiphytic orchids and their hosts in a montane cloud forest.
Gabriela is now studying how rising temperatures affect plant ecological interactions, using the Boiling River in Peru as a model study system. She focuses on understanding how herbivory and ant-plant mutualisms change across this natural thermal gradient. Gabriela is also interested in using hyperspectral data to estimate plant traits related to herbivore defense, including chemical defense traits. Through this work, she aims to better understand how tropical rainforests may respond to future warming driven by climate change.
Learn more at: https://sites.google.com/view/gabrielagarcia-reynaga/about
Alexander Sherer
Growing up in South Florida, Alex has always had an affinity for tropical flora and fauna. He got his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley where he worked on a metabarcoding project for early detection of introduced arthropods in the Hawaiian archipelago. Afterwards he moved to Peru where he lived at the Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon’s field station, helping assess the region’s butterfly and moth diversity and host plant associations. He later worked at Archbold Biological Station he has also helped lead undergraduate field ecology courses in Peru, Ecuador, New Zealand, and the wet tropics of Australia.
Alex's dissertation research will utilize the thermal gradient along Shanay-timpishka (the Boiling River) in Peru to explore how lowland Amazonian forests respond to rising temperatures. He is especially interested in looking for signals of adaptation in plant and microbial community functional traits.
Lina Aragón
Lina got her undergraduate and Masters degreed in Biology at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and her second master's degree in Biology at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Lina studies the physiology and ecology of plants in order to better understand how they can persist under extreme environmental conditions worldwide. Moreover, by studying plant ecophysiology, she hopes to increase our understanding of how plants might respond to climate change.
Learn more at: https://linamaragonb4.wixsite.com/my-site
Camilo Palacios-Hurtado
Camilo is a Forestry Engineer with an M.Sc. in Forests and Environmental Conservation from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín. His research focuses on understanding the ecological and biogeographic processes that shape tree diversity and forest dynamics in the Chocó Biogeographic Region and across the Neotropics. He studies taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, tree hyperdominance, the environmental and spatial drivers of beta diversity, and forest dynamics and carbon change. Through this work, he also aims to increase the visibility of the Chocó and highlight the importance of the Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities that live in and help steward these forests.
Learn more at: https://sites.google.com/view/camilopalacios-hurtado
PostDoctoral Researchers
Undergraduates
Isabella Childress
Isabella (Izzie) is an undergraduate student majoring in biology at the University of Miami. Much of her lab experience comes from the Feeley Lab, and she has recently begun applying this knowledge to her research projects at Montgomery Botanical Center. She is currently investigating pollen extraction and preservation in species resistant to conventional pollen banking. She is particularly interested in plant-microbe-pollinator networks and the conservation of underrepresented species affected by rapid climate change. Izzie hopes to eventually obtain a Ph.D., utilizing the skills she's learned while assisting in the Feeley Lab.
Rachel Collins
Rachel is an undergraduate senior biology major at the University of Miami. She has been involved in climate change advocacy, working with organizations such as The Cleo Institute, 350 South Florida, and Fridays for Future Miami. Currently, Rachel is conducting research on leaf functional traits using herbarium samples.