Sam Ahler

My name is Sam Ahler (they/them) and I was born in what is now Wisconsin—the traditional territories of the Hoocągra (Ho-Chunk), Mamaceqtaw (Menominee), Bodéwadmi (Potawatomi), Dakota, and Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) Nations. I am of English and German descent and my family immigrated to North America in the 1720s. I have Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in Conservation Biology and Environmental Studies, with a minor in LGBTQ+ Studies. I worked in oak savannas and tallgrass prairies with Dr. Ellen Damschen.

As a PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Colorado – Boulder, I work with Suding Lab and Restoration Futures Lab in the mixed grass prairies along the Front Range of Colorado. I now live and work in the traditional territories of the Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne), Hinono’eino (Arapaho), Núuchiu (Ute), Ndee/Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Apache), Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Comanche), Ka’igwu (Kiowa), Lakota, Pueblo (various groups such as Keres, Tewa, and Tiwa), and Newe (Shoshone) Nations. In collaboration with the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield Farms, I study the impact of small-scale environmental conditions on grass establishment, growth, and survival. In addition, I study vegetative—or clonal—methods of reproduction in grasses to better understand individual and population persistence and the mechanisms linking population-level dynamics to ecosystem-level processes. Finally, in collaboration with the REACH Lab at CU Boulder, I study the experiences of LGBTQ+ students in field based undergraduate courses.