🚨Recruiting for Fall 2026!!!🚨

Welcome to Qμest lab

The Qμest lab is led by Dr. J Alex Baecher (⬇️ vita or email me ✉️) and found in Emory’s Dept. of Environmental Science (ENVS). We are an applied ecological research group, broadly interested in the processes that determine the distribution of biodiversity in space and time. Our work integrates field studies, laboratory experiments, big data, cutting-edge modeling techniques, and high-performance computing to address questions related to conservation, invasions, disease, and global change.

Dr. J Alex Baecher

Principal Investigator & Assistant Professor of Applied Ecology

Opportunities

🚨We are currently recruiting!🚨

Fall 2026: 2-3 undergraduate researchers
Fall 2026: 1 postdoctoral research associate
Spring 2027: 1 PhD student

Emory's Atlanta Campus

Interested? Take a look at some of our research projects and publications (seen below). To inquire about opportunities, reach out to Alex ✉️.

Current projects

Citizen Science for Monitoring Birds

Developing novel spatiotemporal population dynamic models to detect range shifts

Aug 1, 2025

Forecasting ecological dynamics and disease

Understanding the pattern and process behind ecological phenomena, including population changes, invasive species, and vector-borne disease.

Aug 1, 2024

Appalachian Salamander Ecology

Natural History, Ecology, and Conservation of Plethodontid Salamanders.

Mar 15, 2024

Biodiversity redistribution

Understanding the ecology of climate-induced range shifts

Mar 1, 2024

Spatiotemporal statistics

Developing spatial and spatiotemporal models using stochastic partial differential equations

Feb 15, 2024

See all projects →

Publications (since 2024)

Brunno F. Oliveira, Romain Bertrand, Malin L. Pinsky, Nicolas Casajus, Barrett W. Wolfee, Brett R. Scheffers, Fabricio Villalobos, Gaël Grenouillet, Gretta T. Pecl, I-Ching Chen, J Alex Baecher, Jake A. Lawlor, Jennifer Sunday, Jérôme Murienne, Jonathan Rolland, Laura M. Thompson, Lesley T. Lancaster, Madeleine A. Rubenstein, Nikki A. Moore, R. M. W. J. Bandara, Sarah E. Diamond, Sarah R. Weiskopf, Jonathan Lenoir, Lise Comte (2026). Species range shifts often speed ahead of their modeled climatic niches. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

PDF DOI Lead: Brunno Oliveira PRESS: Science & Vie (French) PRESS: Daily Geek Show (French) PRESS: Nature Eco & Evol

V a Askshay, J Alex Baecher, Nathan Burkett-Cadena, James T Thorson, Yesenia Sánchez, Yasmin N Tavares, Amely M Bauer, Robert Guralnick, Lindsay P Campbell (2025). Linking hosts, landscapes, and climate to advance zoonotic arbovirus forecasting. Scientific Reports.

Preprint PDF Cite Code Project DOI Lead: Akshay Anand

J Alex Baecher, V a Askshay, Robert Guralnick, Amely M Bauer, Yasmin N Tavares, Yesenia Sánchez, James T Thorson, Lindsay P Campbell (2025). Toward ecological forecasting of West Nile virus in Florida: Insights from two decades of sentinel chicken surveillance. Science of the Total Environment.

Preprint PDF Cite Code Project DOI PRESS: FMNH PRESS: the microbiologist

Luke J Evans, J Alex Baecher, Brett R Scheffers (2024). Invasion risk posed by the pet trade. As a Research Communication in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

PDF Cite DOI Project

J Alex Baecher (2024). The environmental filtering paradigm and non-filtering community assembly processes. Journal of Biogeography.

PDF Cite DOI Slides Project Supplimental Figure