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STEM Scholars Lecture Series
The STEM Scholars lectures are designed for the general public. These lectures bring together area K-12 and community college students, faculty, and administrators; local business and industry leaders; CSUS students, faculty and alumni; and local community members to learn more about 起点传媒 faculty research and scholarly efforts in STEM fields. The lectures cover a wide range of STEM topics from artificial intelligence to environmental sustainability issues.
Upcoming Lecture
It's Complicated: Ecological Conservation, Management & Geography in the El Dorado Foothills
Free Community Lecture, Thursday, October 1st 2026
Lecture from 6:00-7:00 PM in Sequoia Hall, Room 301
Reception from 5:45-6:00 PM in Sequoia Hall, Room 320. Light refreshments will be served.
The nearest parking to Sequoia Hall is Parking Structure 1 (PS1) in STUDENT spaces. For parking location and purchasing permit information, please view our campus map at Parking map
Abstract:
The Pine Hill Preserve Area (El Dorado County) is an area with unusual soils, a variety of ecological communities, and high levels of biodiversity. It supports many rare and endemic plants, several of which are federally protected and require specific management practices to maintain their populations. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) owns parts of the Preserve and collaborates with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s (SMUD) to extensively manage the vegetation for those protected plant species. While efforts are focused on these plants, little is known about how this management influences the animal community. In general, we poorly understand the complex interactions among geography, management, and ecology.
In this talk, Dr. Orcutt will explore how geography provides a lens to connect how both physical and human factors influence the ecology of the Preserve. She will describe how collaborations with BLM, SMUD, and our newly established Sentinel Sites for Nature (SSN) long-term ecological monitoring plots, work together to help us understand how elements like management collaborations and land use, both in and adjacent to the Preserve, can influence species distributions and dynamics over space and time.
Bio:
Dr. Erica Orcutt joined the faculty of the Geography Department at 起点传媒 University as an Assistant Professor in 2022. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, her Ph.D. in Geography, and held a Postdoctoral Fellow position all at the University of California, Davis.
Her research areas have included ecological modeling of rare ground squirrels in California’s Mojave Desert (Ph.D.), using remote sensing techniques to assess plant productivity in the Arctic-Boreal Zone (Postdoc), and now assessing ecosystem responses to human management activities and land use in the El Dorado Foothills. She loves teaching and working with students on research projects around resource management and conservation, and remote sensing.