Brent Ewers

Brent Ewers serves as Professor and Department Head in the Department of Botany within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming. His leadership spans academic administration and active research in plant physiological ecology.

His educational background includes a BS in Forest Biology (minor in Botany) from Colorado State University (1995), followed by MS and PhD in Ecology from Duke University (1997, 1999), and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Forest Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1999-2002).

Ewers' research focuses on plant controls over energy and mass flows from cellular to landscape scales, with particular expertise in plant biophysics, ecohydrology, and disturbance ecology. His lab employs diverse methodologies including gas exchange measurements, isotope ratio analysis, sap flux monitoring, micrometeorology, remote sensing, and process-based modeling across ecosystems ranging from crops to forests and grasslands. Current projects investigate fire impacts on boreal carbon cycles, bark beetle-fungal interactions in Rocky Mountain forests, and drought adaptation genetics in Brassica crops.

His publication portfolio demonstrates significant contributions to understanding ecosystem responses to climate change and disturbances, with recent work emphasizing transdisciplinary approaches to water resource challenges in western headwaters regions through initiatives like the Wyoming Anticipating the Climate-Water Transition (WyACT) project.

Ewers actively mentors students through courses including LIFE 1010 General Biology and BOT 4730/5730 Plant Physiological Ecology, while directing the Ewers Lab which maintains active GitHub repositories for data processing (Chimney-Park-Reprocessing), field instrumentation (Snowy-Range-Logger-Code), and modeling frameworks (TREES_Py_R, brassicaDroughtBN).