This month, the VISTA F3 Spotlight is on Yulissa Perez Rojas, an Environmental Systems PhD candidate at UC Merced!
Yulissa’s research explores how small-scale, short-lived hydrological soil events impact microbial respiration and soil carbon fluxes—key for predicting and managing soils as carbon sinks in a changing climate. Using soils from diverse ecosystems, her experiments reveal that water chemistry significantly influences CO₂ emissions, challenging standard soil science protocols. Yulissa is set to defend in 2025, advised by Teamrat Ghezzehei, Michael Beman, Thomas Harmon, and Nate Bogie.