Renata (Ren) Poulton Kamakura

Ren is a postdoctoral research fellow interested in urban forest governance, specifically how governmental policies and initiatives interact with local scale green space and tree management. They completed their Ph.D. in Ecology at Duke University working with collaborators at The Nature Conservancy to understand patterns of street tree health and how that varies with site conditions, across neighborhoods, and with drought. Before coming to the University of British Columbia (UBC), they were a U.S. NASEM Science Policy Fellow working to understand the impacts of marine heatwaves on coastal communities, ecosystems, and industries. Outside of research, Ren enjoys watercoloring, listening to audiobooks, running, and learning woodworking.