Rate My Professor Justin Mathias

The Mathias Lab at WVU focuses on how global environmental changes—such as altered atmospheric chemistry, climate shifts, and disturbances like wildfires—affect ecosystem biogeochemistry and plant physiology. Key research themes include legacy effects of nitrogen deposition on forest carbon and nutrient cycling, tree-ring records of historical nitrogen dynamics, wildfire impacts on ecophysiology, and soil carbon under farm management. Dr. Mathias integrates stable isotope analysis, field experiments, and process-based models to improve predictions of carbon cycling. His scholarship has appeared in premier outlets: "Global tree intrinsic water use efficiency is enhanced by increased atmospheric CO2 and modulated by climate and plant functional types" (PNAS, 2021, 189 citations); "Disentangling the effects of acidic air pollution, atmospheric CO2, and climate change on recent growth of red spruce trees" (Global Change Biology, 2018, 97 citations); "Terrestrial carbon dynamics in an era of increasing wildfire" (Nature Climate Change, 2023, 53 citations); "Climate change impacts plant carbon balance, increasing mean future carbon use efficiency but decreasing total forest extent at dry range edges" (Ecology Letters, 2022, 36 citations); and "isocalcR: An R package to streamline and standardize stable isotope calculations in ecological research" (Global Change Biology, 2022, 34 citations). Recognized for excellence, he earned the Elizabeth Sulzman Award for best graduate publication from the Ecological Society of America Biogeosciences section in 2018 and the W.D. and S.M. Billings Award from the Physiological Ecology Section in 2019. With 437 citations on Google Scholar, his work informs forest responses to climate change and atmospheric recovery. Dr. Mathias teaches global change ecology, biogeochemistry, and biometry, and actively mentors graduate students.