Jonathan Gewirtzman

Faculty host: Rob Jackson

Affiliated with: Department of Earth System Science, Doerr School of Sustainability

Jonathan Gewirtzman will earn a doctorate in ecology from the Yale School of the Environment in May 2026. His research focuses on how plant and microbial communities shape greenhouse gas fluxes in forest ecosystems, with particular emphasis on methane emissions from trees and the role of the tree microbiome. His graduate work helped reveal that living trees harbor diverse and specialized microbial communities within their wood, opening new questions about tree physiology, forest ecology, and ecosystem–climate interactions. At Stanford, he will study the ecology of tree microbiomes in tropical forests, from community assembly and function to their potential for engineering as a tool for biological methane removal.