My name is Joe Milligan, and I am an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Science and Studies Department at Washington College and Research Associate at the National Museum of Natural History, D.C.

How do organisms and ecosystems respond to climate change? Answering this question is one of the main challenges of contemporary earth science research, as it may help us better understand—and prepare for—the rapid pace of current climate change. Since atmospheric CO₂ and temperature have varied throughout the geologic record, we can use these past natural variations as archives of ecosystem response to changes in climate. My lab focuses on:

(1) reading climate and environmental signals from fossil leaves

(2) developing/refining paleoclimate proxies through field studies and experiments on living plants