Community of Advocates

UPLIFT: Students in STEM

As part of creating a more inclusive and supportive campus, LSAMP students have formed a student group focused on mentorship, leadership, and building community. Many of these student leaders are also part of the LSAMP Student Advisory Council. To learn more contact uplift@pdx.edu

LSAMP Advisory Council

In 2019, LSAMP relaunched their advisory council, a group of dedicated faculty and local STEM professionals. The role of the LSAMP Advisory Council is to support the LSAMP program with guidance, advocacy, and bridge-building to STEM departmental units and other organizations beyond PSU with the objective of creating an academic community that supports the LSAMP mission. Our current council members are listed below.

Andrés Holz

Originally trained as a forester from the Universidad de Chile, Andrés expertise and interests center around forest ecology and the impacts of climate change and land use on forests. in 2002, he moved to Colorado to try out grad school where he joined a Master's program at CU Boulder. While there, he studied forest ecology in southern Chile. After this experience, he was sure that academia was the path for him and stayed for his PhD. Later, as a postdoctoral researcher in Colorado, Dr.Holz investigated fire ecology and the impacts of climate change in Patagonia. Before joining Portland State in 2013, he spent two years working as a research associate in Southeast Australia (Tasmania).

One of Dr. Andrés current projects, The GEC Lab, conducts use-inspired science and supports research in the areas of vegetation dynamics and disturbance ecology (fire, insect outbreaks, volcanic eruptions, and other disturbances), landscape ecology, land use change, forest policy and management practices, and relies on cross-scale approaches that include statistical and process-based modeling, dendrochronology, GIS and remote sensing, and paleoecology. You can learn more about it here : http://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/gec_lab/

Olyssa Starry

Professor Starry received her PhD from the University of Maryland in College Park where she utilized wireless sensor technology to study the ecophysiology of succulent plants typically found on eco-roofs in the Lea-Cox lab. Prior to this, she was an NSF-IGERT trainee at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County. She has held positions with the State of PA Department of Environmental protection and the Urban Ecology Institute in Boston. She also holds an MS in stream ecology from Virginia Polytechnic and State University as well as a BA/MS in Environmental Studies from American University in Washington D.C.

Marisa Trujillo DeMull

With a passion for combining safety and equity, Marisa Trujillo DeMull, PE, is a life-long social justice activist. Her early career was spent as an organizer and researcher, which showed her the critical need for safety and security in low-income communities and communities of color.

After a decade of campaign work, her desire to see real change drove her to pursue a degree in Transportation Engineering because of her belief that Transportation Engineers can engage and change the community through the movement of people and goods.

Today, Marisa aims to create a racial equity vision for Transportation Engineers and she believes all transportation systems must be modeled with an eye towards equitable communities. Marissa holds degrees in Political Science, Religious Studies and Civil Engineering and works as a Senior Engineering Associate for the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation in Portland, Oregon.

Andrew Rice

Andrew Rice is an associate professor in the Department of Physics. His teaching is primarily in the field
of physics and includes service courses in general physics (mechanics, waves, optics, thermodynamics),
major-specific courses thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, experimental methods, and general
education courses in meteorology, radiation, and other environmental fields.

His dedication to teachingand learning earned him the John Elliot Allen Outstanding Teacher Award two times in the College. Dr.Rice is also the undergraduate advisor for physics majors at PSU, helping students plan academics and
extra-curricular activities (e.g., research). His primary research interests are in the study of long-lived
greenhouse gases and in the use of stable isotopes in atmospheric trace gases to understand drivers of
short and long-term variability in their atmospheric abundance.

Dr. Rice founded and runs the PSU Stable Isotope Lab. He was a founding member of Center for Climate and Aerosol Research (CCAR) and is the director of the CCAR Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

Annie Lindgren

Dr. Annie Lindgren works extensively with CLEE faculty to increase informal STEM opportunities for the public via several avenues including PSU and PDX Women in Science events, OMSI "Meet a Scientist", Science Pubs, K-12 mentoring and field trips.

Dr. Lindgren has served as the coordinator of CLEE since 2011 and director since 2018. She serves as the chair of the steering committee and oversees day-to-day operations of the center. A deep-sea budget, Dr.Lindgren also teaches/mentors students and conducts independent research.