Bio

Meredith Zettlemoyer is an assistant professor at the University of Montana. Her work examines the ecological and evolutionary consequences of global change across biological scales, including phenotypic plasticity, population demography and macroecological patterns of extinction and spread across landscapes. Meredith studied biology and English at the University of Virginia. She went on to earn her doctorate in ecology, evolutionary biology and behavior at Michigan State University, where she studied drivers of local extinction in tallgrass prairie plants. Meredith’s postdoctoral work at the University of Georgia focused on how phenological plasticity affects alpine plant population dynamics.

Meredith joined the University of Montana in 2023, where her lab studies how plant populations and communities respond to global changes like advancing snowmelt and more frequent wildfires. She is particularly interested in how phenotypic plasticity and biotic interactions affect population persistence and species distributions as well as how demographic models can inform conservation efforts under multiple interacting stressors. Outside of research, Meredith enjoys hiking, playing with her dog and musical theater.

Learn More About Meredith’s Research