Alessandro Ossola, PhD

Selected projects as PI or Co-PI

• A Big Data Tool for Urban Crop Selection Under Climate Change (FFAR)
• Post-fire Tree Risk Assessment Protocol for Western Urban Forests (FS)
• Evaluating tree cooling performance in California schoolyards (FS)
• Quantifying Greenspace Impacts on Human Health and Ecosystem Services in California (CARB)
• Measuring litter flammability and traits of California's urban forests (FS)
• Assessing the Role of the Urban Forest in Fire Impacts and Loss of Structures in the Palisades Fire (UCLA ORCA)
• Fast phenotyping to assess effects of polyploidy on ornamental water-use (CANERS-PCA)
• Urban heat islands as windows into climate change and ecosystem service provisioning by street trees (USDA NIFA)
  • The Global Urban Tree Inventory: A database of the diverse tree flora that inhabits the world’s cities

Current teaching

• ENH 06 Intro to Environmental Plants (Fall Quarters)
• ENH 100 Urban Forests are Nature-Based Solutions (Fall Quarters)
• Plus many guest lectures and co-teaching in other classes

Outreach and Extension

• Dr. Ossola’s research was showcased in several media contributions on TV, radio, web, magazines, and press, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, ABC’s News, SBS Radio, Channel 7 News, The Advertiser, The Daily Telegraph, Nature Index, Cosmos Magazine, and The Conversation, among many others.

Prizes, Awards, Honors

• US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine – NRC Research Associate Award (2016-2017).
• New Innovator Award - Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (2022). 

Education and Degree(s)

• Doctorate (PhD) in Ecology, The University of Melbourne, Australia, 2016
• Master of Science (MS) in Ecology, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy, 2008
• Bachelor of Science (BS) in Ecology, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy, 2005

Membership and Service

• Chair of the Research Committee of the Saratoga Horticultural Research Endowment
• Member of the Executive Oversight Team of the Los Angeles Center for Urban Natural Resources Sustainability

External activities that contribute to scholarship

• Former Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
• Former Honorary Research Fellow, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
• Grant Reviewer and panelist for NASEM and NOAA, USA; NERC, UK; NSERC, Canada; German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF); Irish Research Council; Dutch Research Council (NOW), among others.
• Associate Editor for Landscape and Urban Planning.
• Review Editor for journals Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.
• Reviewer for journals Landscape and Urban Planning, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, Environmental Pollution, Journal of Hydrology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Ecology and Society Urban Ecosystems, Biology Letters, Functional Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Science of the Total Environment, Applied Soil Ecology, Environmental Science and Policy, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, PLoS One, Biodiversity and Conservation, Ecosphere, Journal of Arid Environments, Biotropica, Urban Naturalist, Journal of Urban Ecology, Sustainable Cities and Society, AMBIO, among others.