Parsa Saffarinia

Parsa Saffarinia

Postdoc researcher
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My research interests lie primarily in aquatic ecology with an emphasis on investigating the role disturbance plays in structuring communities and food webs. My projects tend to employ a bottom-up approach to investigating the persistence of taxa (such as diatoms, insects, and fish) in human-dominated landscapes. As the drivers of global change continue to alter the fundamental processes (namely, flow) sustaining our food webs, my collaborators and I develop innovative empirical and data-driven approaches with the goal of increasing the persistence of imperiled species.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow mentored by Albert Ruhi and Stephanie Carlson at ESPM, and James Hobbs at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. As a Delta Science Fellow, I am supported by California Sea Grant, the Delta Stewardship Council, and the California State Water Contractors. My project is focused on investigating the time-varying effects of flow variation and food availability on longfin smelt population dynamics, via advanced modeling of a diverse set of environmental and ecological monitoring time series.