Geertje van der Heijden

Geertje van der Heijden is Professor of Forest Ecology and Global Change at the University of Nottingham's School of Geography, a position she assumed in August 2024 after progressing from Anne McLaren Research Fellow (2015-2019) to Assistant Professor (2019-2022) and Associate Professor (2022-2024). Her academic career includes postdoctoral research at the University of Sheffield, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and University of Leeds, with teaching experience at Northumbria University.

She earned her PhD in Geography from the University of Leeds (2004-2008), MSc in Environmental Forestry from Bangor University (2003-2004), and MSc in Biology from Utrecht University (1996-2002). Her educational background spans European institutions, reflecting an international academic foundation.

Dr. van der Heijden's research centers on liana ecology in tropical forests and its implications for carbon cycling and forest dynamics under global change. Her work examines how woody vines impact tree growth, forest structure, and carbon storage across diverse tropical regions. She integrates traditional field ecology with advanced remote sensing techniques, particularly UAV applications, to scale observations from individual plants to landscape-level patterns. Her research reveals significant biogeographical differences in liana impacts between Neotropical and Southeast Asian forests.

Analysis of her recent publications shows a consistent focus on how lianas reduce carbon storage potential through multiple mechanisms including limiting tree height, altering forest structure, and slowing succession processes. Her work has pioneered methods using remote sensing to assess liana infestation, demonstrating that forest disturbance, climate, and topography collectively drive global patterns of liana dominance. Increasingly, her research addresses practical applications for biodiversity monitoring and forest restoration in the context of climate change.

Her contributions have been published in leading journals including Science, Global Change Biology, and Journal of Ecology, reflecting the significance of her work in advancing understanding of tropical forest responses to environmental change.

Dr. van der Heijden maintains extensive international collaborations across tropical regions, particularly in the Amazon basin, Central America, and Southeast Asia. Her research often involves large-scale collaborative projects that integrate field measurements with remote sensing approaches to address pressing questions about forest responses to global environmental change, with implications for climate change mitigation strategies and forest conservation practices.