Bela Starinchak is an early career research ecologist, working in the Brando Lab at the Yale School of the Environment, with a role very similar to a post-doc. Bela received her Master’s in 2023 from James Madison University, and is currently applying to PhD programs. The Brando Labs research focuses on tropical forest ecology and resilience under global change. Specific research focuses include identifying ecological & climatological thresholds beyond which global changes cause abrupt, prolonged degradation of terrestrial ecosystems, quantifying ecological & climatological boundaries for tropical agricultural expansion and intensification and finding solutions to feed the planet while maintaining the ecological integrity of terrestrial natural ecosystems.
For her outreach project, Bela wrote an op-ed titled “Why Environmental Tipping Points Don’t Have to Spell Doom”, discussing the topic of ecological tipping points in conversations of global change. Bela argues that tipping points in ecosystems are real and dangerous points in which to pass, but they are often misunderstood as sudden and irreversible endpoints, when in reality they are shaped by multiple interacting disturbances, and resilience and recovery of ecosystems are still possible if key pressures are studied, understood and reduced.
This op-ed was published in Undark Magazine in March 2026. You can read the entire piece here!
