Dr. Insu Jo grew up on Jeju Island, the largest island in South Korea. His parents were farmers, operating a mandarin orange orchard. Insu played around the farm and had a “quite close connection to nature,” which eventually led him to study plant ecology at Seoul National University.
Jo completed his bachelor’s degree (2007) and remained at his alma mater to work on a master’s degree (2009) studying threadleaf water-crowfoot, an endangered aquatic plant species in South Korea, found only in rice paddies.
From there, Jo landed at Syracuse University, where he worked on his PhD under Drs. Jason Fridley and Doug Frank, looking at the impacts of non-native plant invasions in the eastern United States.
“Jason Fridley is a plant community ecologist whose primary research focuses on plant invasions, while Doug Frank is an ecosystems ecologist studying the effects of ungulates on plant-soil feedback in Yellowstone,” Jo explained. “I got the benefit of working with both, looking at the invasion impacts on ecosystem processes, particularly nitrogen cycling. I did quite a lot of work collecting plant functional traits and comparing those traits for both leaves and roots and how those differences link to soil nutrient cycling. I did a lot of decomposition experiments, digging in soil, making monoculture plots and harvesting.”
Jo met Dr. Songlin Fei at an Ecological Society of America meeting and came to work with him as a postdoctoral scholar at Purdue from 2016 to 2018. During that time, Jo expanded his knowledge base, transitioning from experimental scientist to data driven modeling, specifically modeling tree dynamics using the Forest Inventory and Analysis Database (FIA).
A forest ecologist position in the Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research Group within New Zealand’s Crown Research Institute system (now the New Zealand Institute for Bioeconomy Science Limited) drew Jo back around the globe. While there, he analyzed national forest inventory data to examine plant invasion dynamics, focusing on multi-species impacts and the role of canopy disturbance on understory invasions, as well as tree demographic processes, testing tree recruitment, growth and mortality are shaped by species traits and environmental conditions.
After six years at Manaaki Whenua, Jo saw the opportunity to return to Purdue as a research assistant professor in the Institute for Digital Forestry, reuniting with Dr. Fei to explore how disturbance and climate change influence forest dynamics.
“I liked living in New Zealand, but I felt a bit limited in terms of the research,” Jo said. “I thought maybe it was time to development myself more. I saw the opening at the Institute of Digital Forestry and that they were trying to incorporate some high-tech driven data into traditional inventory data analysis. I thought that was an area I could adapt and improve myself for the next stage of my life.”