Mingzhen Lu (PI)

ResearchGate · Google Scholar · ORCID

Mingzhen Lu is an ecologist and complexity scientist. His research seeks to unearth the simple rules that give rise to the complex dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems and their coupled human urban systems. Specific research topics include i) examining the role of plant roots in shaping global biogeochemistry, ii) understanding plant-microbial symbioses and their global significance, iii) investigating ecological regime shifts using the lens of plant-trait-resource feedback, and more recently iv) developing a general system-based theory that can bridge ecosystem ecology and urban science.

Mingzhen’s fieldwork systems include the South African Cape Floristic Kingdom, Tibetan grassland, etc. Prior to NYU, Mingzhen was an Omidyar Complexity Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (2020–2023), where he worked on applying toolkits from ecosystem ecology for better understanding urban material flows. He is a board member of SinoEco, and member of Sigma Xi, Ecological Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union.

• Ph.D. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (2018), Princeton University
• B.S. Physical Geography (2012), Peking University

José Ignacio Arroyo

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Ignacio is a mathematical and computational biologist. He is interested in studying complex systems, from the molecular to the socio-economic level, using theoretical approaches to explain and predict their behavior. This endeavor often involves making large databases, statistical/computational analyses, and developing mathematical models. He obtained his Ph.D. from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, under the supervision of Pablo Marquet. He currently works with Mingzhen on projects broadly related to global biogeochemistry. One current project aims to better understand the chemical fabric that underlies living and nonliving materials, and their implications for carbon solutions. He is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, where he works with Chris Kempes and Geoffrey West on Scaling Theory, among other problems. More: https://sites.google.com/view/jiarroyo/bio.

Aiyu Zheng

Postdoctoral Associate

Personal site · Google Scholar

Aiyu is a forest ecologist interested in exploring the multi-scale ecological consequences of plant life histories, growth, and reproductive strategies using mathematical models and empirical work.

Her research focuses on grassy trees, large canopy monocots such as bamboo, palms, and bananas that combine grass-like rapid growth with tree-like canopy persistence. While using theory to understand how large terrestrial plants achieve structural persistence without secondary growth, she also works on promoting these species as nature-based solutions for climate and livelihood benefits in tropical regions. Besides natural forests, she also studies the urban dynamics of concrete forests with human populations residing within them. Using ecology-inspired metapopulation theory and network analysis, she investigates drivers of urban decay and growth, identifying potential regions for policy interventions to improve urban socioeconomic resilience.

Besides research, Aiyu is also passionate about teaching ecology and environmental science at all levels, and is excited about exploring pedagogical techniques for promoting learning, especially for underresourced groups.

Aiyu earned her undergraduate degree from Colorado College in Integrated Environmental Science in 2018 and got her PhD degree in 2024 from Princeton University working with Stephen Pacala.

Steve Caron

Postdoctoral Associate

Steve is a forest biogeochemist who is interested in exploring how global change influences the key nutrient cycles which dictate ecosystem function and carbon storage. His research is focused on the impacts of urbanization, forest fragmentation, and changing seasonality on the nitrogen cycle in temperate deciduous forests. His work uses field observations and experimentation carried out over varied temporal and spatial scales to reveal how climate and land use change interact with carbon and nitrogen dynamics.

Steve joined the lab as a Postdoctoral Associate in November 2024. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Analysis and Policy from Boston University in 2016, and gained further experience in field ecology with the National Park Service and US Forest Service throughout the western US until 2019. He got his PhD degree (2024) in Biology from Boston University working with Pamela Templer.

Jingkang Liao

Graduate Student Affiliate

ResearchGate · ORCID

Jingkang Liao is a 4th-year PhD student in the College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University. His research employs molecular techniques and ecological theory to study the intricate interactions among subsurface flora and fauna in grassland ecosystems impacted by climate change, with a specific focus on: i) Quantitative analysis of plant root communities using DNA barcoding, ii) studying the effects of warming and rainfall patterns on root turnover in alpine meadows, and iii) investigating climate-induced changes in root secretion and compound composition in meadow plants.

Jingkang’s fieldwork spans the beautiful alpine meadows of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. He is also a self-taught myrmecologist, avid swimmer, and a Ping-pong coach.

• B.S. in Ecology (2021), Lanzhou University

Shloka V. Janapaty

Graduate Student Affiliate

Personal site · Google Scholar

A former assistant research scientist in our group, Shloka is now a PhD student of EEB at Princeton University, working with Lars Hedin and Simon Levin. She continues collaborating with Mingzhen and Chris Kempes on the emergence of spatiotemporal order in biocrust communities.

Sahil Parupudi

Graduate Student Affiliate

Sahil Parupudi is a MS Data Science student at NYU Center for Data Science. His interests include computer vision and applied deep learning. He has worked on building vision-based pipelines involving object detection and segmentation. At the Lu Lab, he is contributing to the GrassyTree Detection project, developing models to identify and map grassy tree species from crowdsourced geotagged photography.

Yiwen (Bruce) Zhang

Graduate Student Affiliate

Bruce is an M.S. student in Data Science at New York University. His research interests broadly lie in human mobility modeling, reinforcement learning, and computational social systems. He is particularly interested in understanding large-scale population dynamics and decision-making processes through data-driven approaches, simulation, and machine learning methods. His recent work includes reinforcement learning for budget-constrained ad bidding, semantic trajectory mining with large language models, and modeling population flow. Outside of research, he is interested in urban systems and interactive simulations, and fitness.

He earned his bachelor’s degrees in Statistics & Data Science and Applied Mathematics from University of California, Los Angeles in 2025.