Yangkang Chen

I use data science, statistics, and computation to study bird migration as a model for understanding spatiotemporal dynamics in natural systems. I'm particularly interested in how organisms move across space and time, how ecological communities are structured across the annual cycle, and how large-scale biodiversity patterns can be revealed from complex datasets. My work includes population-level migration modeling across North America and research on species associations in migratory bird communities. More broadly, my research aims to link methodological innovation with ecological insight to better understand continental-scale ecological processes.