Chaoqun (Crystal) Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at ISU. Her research addresses how natural and human disturbances have affected and will affect ecosystem processes, agricultural food production, greenhouse gas fluxes, and nutrient movement from land to water bodies, by using a systems approach, ecosystem modeling, and data-model assimilation. Her current water-related work includes modeling the coupled hydro-biogeochemical cycling, estimating land-to-aquatic nitrogen loading in agriculture-dominated watersheds, and predicting the effectiveness of nutrient reduction practices under the changing climate. Her work has led to 77 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals such as Nature, Global Change Biology, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, and so on, with an H-index of 39. Crystal lives in Ames with her husband, two daughters, and a dog.
View Lu’s Google scholar profile.