Ashley is a PhD student in the Biology department as part of the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology (GDPE). She studies soil food webs’ roles in ecosystem functioning. In particular, Ashley is interested in how terrestrial nutrient cycling by soil microbes is affected by the diversity and community composition of their faunal consumers, as well as how soil biota-mediated processes are impacted by global change. The use of stable isotopes to track and quantify the nutrient pool changes in soil and the soil food web is one of Ashley’s favorite tools for research.