ABOUT ME
Stream and riparian ecologist (StRipE)
For the past 15 years, I have been working as a riparian and stream ecologist and hydrologist with specific focus on watershed processes, diversity patterns and land management. Overall, I am interested in how aquatic and terrestrial processes interact to drive species diversity, distribution of organisms and ecosystem services, how these ecological patterns in turn influence water quality, and how are such interactions modified by land use and a global change. My research questions are centered on ecological communities and ecosystem processes and functions in relation to both surface and subsurface (i.e., groundwater) water flows in natural and modified landscapes. In the applied aspect of my research I am interested in how to develop best-practice landscape management plans to protect surface waters.
I finished my undergraduate degree in Landscape Studies at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague in 2008 and after that relocated to complete my Masters degree in Biology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå, Sweden. After finishing my masters, I was offered a PhD position at the Umeå University and defended my doctoral degree in Ecology in March 2015. After that I earned my own funding for a short postdoctoral fellowship at SLU, which I was managing on distance because I was also offered a postdoctoral position at the University of British Colombia in the lab of Dr. John Richardson. I moved to Vancouver in May 2015 and lived in Canada until December 2017. My project at UBC involved field studies in southern Ontario where I spent my summers conducting field work on urban and suburban streams. I started a position as an Associate Senior Lecturer in forest management at SLU, Umeå in January 2018 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in at the end of 2021. At the same time, I earned by docent title (equivalent to associate profesor) in forest management. My major interest within my current position is forest management around streams and rivers in Sweden but I am starting to expand my studies also to upland forests. I maintain active collaboration with my former colleagues at UBC (Vancouver, Canada) and started a number of new ones with researches from number of countries (Finland, Spain, USA...).
I finished my undergraduate degree in Landscape Studies at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague in 2008 and after that relocated to complete my Masters degree in Biology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå, Sweden. After finishing my masters, I was offered a PhD position at the Umeå University and defended my doctoral degree in Ecology in March 2015. After that I earned my own funding for a short postdoctoral fellowship at SLU, which I was managing on distance because I was also offered a postdoctoral position at the University of British Colombia in the lab of Dr. John Richardson. I moved to Vancouver in May 2015 and lived in Canada until December 2017. My project at UBC involved field studies in southern Ontario where I spent my summers conducting field work on urban and suburban streams. I started a position as an Associate Senior Lecturer in forest management at SLU, Umeå in January 2018 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in at the end of 2021. At the same time, I earned by docent title (equivalent to associate profesor) in forest management. My major interest within my current position is forest management around streams and rivers in Sweden but I am starting to expand my studies also to upland forests. I maintain active collaboration with my former colleagues at UBC (Vancouver, Canada) and started a number of new ones with researches from number of countries (Finland, Spain, USA...).