FACULTY RESEARCH EXPERTISE
PhD Ohio State University, Environmental Science
Research Focus: Wetland Ecology
Web Site: http://mason.gmu.edu/~cahn
Office/Lab: DK 3034/DK 3079A
Phone: 993-3978
Email: Click Here
Dr. Ahn’s general research interests and experiences include ecological functions of created wetlands, wetland system ecology, water quality, wetland creation and restoration, nutrient dynamics (N, P), and ecological modeling. He also has recently begun to apply the techniques of environmental molecular biology in his research to study the linkages between sediment microbial community patterns and nutrient processes in wetlands.
Currently his lab, Wetland Ecosystem Laboratory, at GMU has two main topics of study: wetland creation/restoration techniques (i.e., microtopography relations), ecological monitoring of mitigation wetlands, and microbial community patterns along biogeochemical gradients in constructed wetlands.
Through his postdoctoral work at the Illinois Water Resources Center of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Ahn focused on developing a dynamic model to predict vegetation responses to many different scenarios of river hydrology being manipulated for the restoration of Illinois floodplain-river ecosystem. Through this project, Dr. Ahn worked with a number of stakeholders, including The Nature Conservancy and National Science Foundation.