Rate My Professor Eleinis Ávila-Lovera

Eleinis Ávila-Lovera is an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah. Originally from Venezuela, she earned a B.S. in Biology from the Central University of Venezuela between 2006 and 2011 and a Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology from the University of California, Riverside from 2013 to 2018. After completing her doctorate, she served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Chapman University’s Schmid College of Science and Technology from July 2018 to June 2020, followed by an Earl S. Tupper Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute until 2023. She joined the University of Utah in 2023.

A plant ecophysiologist, Ávila-Lovera’s research centers on understanding plant responses to drought and tolerance mechanisms, particularly the role of photosynthetic stems in survival across ecosystems such as deserts, Mediterranean-climate regions, xerophytic shrublands, and dry forests. Her lab explores physiological traits like water status regulation in leaves versus stems and coordination between hydraulic conductivity and stem photosynthesis. She teaches BIOL 5460: Plant Ecology in a Changing World and is a co-founder and coordinator of the Red Latinoamericana de Ecofisiología Vegetal. Key publications include “Evidence for phylogenetic signal and correlated evolution in plant-water relations traits” (New Phytologist, 2022), “Beneath the Bark: Assessing Woody Stem Water and Carbon Fluxes and Its Prevalence Across Climates and the Woody Plant Phylogeny” (Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 2021), “Stem photosynthesis and hydraulics are coordinated in desert plant species” (New Phytologist, 2017), “The benefits of woody plant stem photosynthesis extend to hydraulic function and drought survival in Parkinsonia florida” (Tree Physiology, 2024), and “Variation in stem bark conductance to water vapor in Neotropical plant species” (Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 2024). Her scholarship has accumulated 876 citations, with an h-index of 17. She has delivered public lectures, including “Why Have Green Stems?” at the Natural History Museum of Utah.