Our Collaborators

Our research relies on collaborators from France, Spain, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and integrates across crop modeling, ecology and climatology. Our work is only possible due to our amazing collaborations. Here’s an overview of who we work with (listed alphabetically):

Mike Betancourt  is an applied statistician and a brilliant modeler. He has worked extensively on the Hamiltonian Monte-Carlo algorithm for Stan—a platform for statistical modeling and high-performance statistical computation. Watch his talk on Scalable Bayesian Inference with Hamiltonian Monte-Carlo.

Pat Bowen is a research scientist in viticulture and plant physiology working at AgCanada in Summerland. She is an expert on sustainable vineyard development, and the Okanagan winegrowing region. She works closely with Carl Bogdanoff, learn more about their work in the 2019 CCOVI Lecture Series.

Carl Bogdanoff is a biologist specializing in viticulture and plant physiology working at AgCanada in Summerland. His primary areas of expertise include cold hardiness and the Okanagan winegrowing region. He works closely with Pat Bowen. Learn more about their work in the 2019 CCOVI Lecture Series.

 

Ben Cook is a climatologist at NASA GISS who researches climate variability and the risk of extreme climate events. His interdisciplinary work combines long-term climate records, land surface processes, and ecology with a particular focus on droughts. He has even written a book on Drought.

Iñaki García de Cortázar-Atauri is a world leader in improving phenological models for winegrapes (and other crops) through advances in modeling approaches and improved physiological understanding. He is a Research Engineer at INRAE-Avignon, where he works on the STICS model and the national phenological database and consortium umbrelled under SOERE TEMPO.

Thierry Lacombe is a globally recognized ampelographer and winegrape diversity expert at INRAE, Montpellier SupAgro, UMR AGAP. This research unit helps to run Domaine de Vassalthe largest ampelographic collection in the world.

 

Ignacio Morales-Castilla is a macroecologist and biogeographer who worked as a Research Associate with us in 2016-2017. Today, he is a Beatriz Galindo Fellow at the University of Alcalá and works in the Department of Life Sciences (Global Change Ecology and Evolution). He’s particularly interested in Iberian winegrape varieties.

Amber Parker is an expert on winegrape phenology at Lincoln University in New Zealand. She has been instrumental in helping us gather climate and phenological data, as well as build models.

Kees van Leeuwen has studied the impact of climate change on grapes for decades and was foundational to our work when he agreed to meet Lizzie in 2011 in Bordeaux. Learn more about the VitAdapt project, where he is growing a diversity of varieties and studying which varieties will fare best in warmer Bordeaux climates.

Andy Walker is an ampelographer working at UC Davis who has been an amazing resource for our work. Learn about his work breeding new varieties for Pierce’s disease and read his 2015 Conversation article discussing how climate change may bringing a ‘golden age of grape breeding’.