Dr. Alonso Ramirez is a professor at the Dept. of Applied Ecology, NCSU. His research focuses on the ecology of tropical and urban streams and aquatic macroinvertebrates, with an emphasis on the importance of conducting long-term studies to understand those systems. His laboratory has two main research goals: (1) Understand the dynamics of tropical streams in the context of a changing climate, in particular assessing the impact of droughts and hurricanes. (2) Understand the dynamics of urban streams and assess how urbanization is affecting aquatic biota and the ecological processes in which they participate. Dr. Ramirez received his undergraduate degree from the National University of Costa Rica. He then obtained his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Georgia, where his theses focused on the dynamics of aquatic macroinvertebrates in tropical lowland streams in Costa Rica. After working for many years as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, he moved to NCSU in 2018 to continue his research on tropical stream ecosystems and their biota.