Education Professional Preparation
1980 Social Worker Algonquin College, Ottawa, Canada
1987 B.Sc, Biology Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada,. (Honors)
1996 Ph.D., Evolutionary Ecology University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras
Academic experience
Assistant Professor UPR-Humacao, Biology, 1996-1999.
Coordinator of the Wildlife Management Program PR-Humacao, Biology, 1998-2005.
Associate Professor PR-Humacao, Biology, 1999-2004.
Tenured PR-Humacao, Biology, 2001.
Active Member of the Graduate Faculty of Biology Programs, MSc, & Ph.D. at UPR-Rio Piedras, San Juan, 2002.
Sabbatical (Royal Botanical Gardens-Melbourne, Australia), 2004-2005.
Active Full PROFESSOR UPR-Humacao, Biology, 2004.
Academic Senator: University of Puerto Rico- Humacao campus, 2008-2010.
Alternate Representative of the faculty for the UPRH on the Governing Body of the University, 2009-2010.
Interim Chair of the Department of Biology, UPR-H, 2010-2011.
Director of the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research, UPR-H, 2013-2014.
Active San Juan Bautista School of Medicine- Adjunct Professor, 2019.
Steering Committee Member, NIGMS-PRINBRE, 2013-2018.
Program Director, Improving Student Outcomes through Augmented Laboratory Resources for Natural Health Sciences at UPR-Humacao. USDE Grant Award P031S140142. No cost extension (2019-2020), 2014-2019.
Senior Mentor – UPR-Cayey, Instituto de Investigación Interdisciplinario. 2015-2016.
Shared academic activities between UPR-H and UPR-Cayey, 2015-201650%.
Member of the “Conseil scientifique de la Societé Française d’Orchidophile”, Paris, France, 2017-2019.
Senior Mentor—UPR-Humacao, 2017-2019.
Active Coordinator of Senior Mentors activities on 5 campuses (UPR-Bayamon, UPR-Cayey, UPR-Humacao, UPR-Ponce, UPR-Rio Piedras, 2017.
PI with (Isar Godreau, Jannette Gavillan, Raymond L. Tremblay), Enhancing Research Training through Empowerment, Resilience, and Civic Engagement, NIH-IPERT, R25 GM121270-01 for 2016-2022, 2016-2020.
Current Membership in Professional Organizations:
IUCN Orchid Conservation Specialist group: since 2001.
Professional Developmental Activity
MIT 7 day workshop on Neurobiology and quantitative analysis. Boston, 2020-January.
RStudio Conference 2020, at San Francisco, CA. 2 days of workshop on Time series analysis and 2 days of conferences, 2020-January.
PI or co-PI and collaborator of multiple grants from NSF, NIH, USF&W
Mentor of over 90+ undergraduate students doing research in my lab
Mentor of over 20+ graduate students at Universities in Puerto Rico (UPR, Univ. del Turabo, Metropolitan Univ.) and Colombia.
Publications I have published over 70+ peer reviewed papers and have a been cited at least 2150 (Google scholar). The paper which has had most impact is “Variation in sexual reproduction in orchids and its evolutionary consequences: a spasmodic journey to diversification”. Biological Journal of Linnean Society, 2005, Tremblay, RL J. D. Ackerman, J. K. Zimmerman & R. Calvo. with over 630 citations. This paper reviews the literature on reproductive processes in orchids and suggest that cladogenesis and likely the result of the great number of species in this family is likely a result of not only Natural Selection, but an interplay of Natural Selection and Genetic Drift.
Another important paper is “Bayesian Estimation of transition probabilities in seven small lithophytic orchid populations: maximizing data availability from small samples”. Tremblay and McCarthy, 2014. This paper is unique in that is resolves one of the major issues of dealing with rare species, that is the lack of data, in this case we show that we can use information from other transitions and populations to estimate the most likely parameters.
In this following paper, improving the power of population projections: a unified approach to asymptotic and transient population dynamics. Annals of Botany. DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcv031., Tremblay, RL, Josep Raventos, JD. Ackerman 2015. We show that by using multiple approaches to evaluating population dynamics (traditional and new approaches) we get a more in depth appreciation of the ecology and likely dynamics future patterns of growth of the species.