Faculty Mentor: Seppe Kuehn (University of Chicago)
Abstract: Understanding the complexity of microbial ecosystems, particularly soil microbiomes essential to the nitrogen cycle, remains a fundamental challenge in biological modeling. This project aims to bridge the gap between individual-level microbial interactions and ecosystem-scale behavior by developing a new hierarchical consumer-resource framework grounded in advanced matrix theory. By integrating these mathematical models with high-throughput experimental data, the researchers seek to reveal how environmental constraints and phylogenetic structure dictate the stability and efficiency of microbial communities. Ultimately, this work aims to establish a universal statistical language for predicting the emergent dynamics of complex biological systems.