Carolyn Koehn

Carolyn Koehn

I am a doctoral candidate at Boise State University primarily interested in teaching ecology and data science skills to undergraduates. My current research focuses on dynamics of ecosystem services and social-ecological archetypes in an urbanizing public-private lands network.

Research

Current Work

My current work focuses on farmland loss and private lands protection. I’m interested in the ways that different priorities shape land protection plans. I’ve assisted in developing methods for systematic farmland conservation planning informed by ecosystem services (published here), and a paper where we examine how changing priorties can shift conservation plans is in review. I’m currently working on an archetype analysis of agricultural change in Idaho using publicly available datasets.

I’ve also enjoyed mentoring seven undergraduate students across five semesters. Two of these students assisted with a literature review on soil tilling and cover crop practices in Idaho. Five students examined agricultural and demographic differences across Idaho counties while honing their data analysis skills in R. They presented this work at the Undergraduate Research Showcase (2024 and 2025) and the Service Learning/Vertically Integrated Projects Expo (2024) at Boise State University.

Former Work

My master’s thesis research was focused on soil moisture patterns in the dryland southwestern United States and how ponderosa pine rejuvenation might be affected by dry periods. You can read about soil moisture patterns here and ponderosa pine seedling survival during dry periods here.

As an undergraduate, I was involved in a study to document the flora of Grand Rapids, MI, with the ultimate goal of comparing the flora of the present to the flora documented by Emma Cole >100 years ago. You can read about our botanical assessments of a high quality wetland and nearby forest in the Undeveloped Lowell Regional Greenspace here and here.

I also mentored a group of six undergraduate students in a study of dune movement and vegetation patterns in PJ Hoffmaster State Park as part of the First Year Research in Earth Sciences course.