Charlotte H. Chang


Bio

Photo of Charlotte I am an Assistant Professor in Data Science at the University of Oregon and am affiliated with the Institute for Ecology and Evolution. My lab develops and applies artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning methods to social-ecological systems data to support biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and human well-being.
 
I received a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University where I was co-supervised by Simon Levin and David Wilcove. I subsequently performed independent postdoctoral research at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where I collaborated with Xingli Giam and Paul Armsworth. I also completed a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship, working with Yuta Masuda at The Nature Conservancy. Throughout my career, I've partnered with non-profits, ranging from the Centre for Wildlife Studies India to the Wildlife Conservation Society. 

Contact

chchang [at] uoregon [dot] edu
 
       
 
Data Science
School of Computer and Data Sciences
University of Oregon

Join the Lab

I am actively recruiting graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Prospective lab members should email me with a CV and a brief two- to three-sentence description of their research interests.

Selected Projects

Mentorship

I have had the privilege of mentoring young scientists in the US, China, India, and Southeast Asia. My mentees include:

Publications

(Click year to show/hide. Note that * denotes undergraduate co-authors)

2026

A global assessment reveals widespread co-benefits for forest protection
  • Chang, C. H., Robinson, B. E., Papp, D., Molnár, I., Erbaugh, J. T., & Masuda, Y. J.
  • bioRxiv (preprint)
Choosing wisely: Using discrete choice experiments with experts to inform conservation action
  • Erbaugh, J. T., Lu, L., Robinson, B. E., Chang, C. H., Molnár, I., Papp, D., & Masuda, Y. J.
  • Environmental Research Letters
Influence of animal ambassadors on viewership, engagement, willingness to pay, and learning outcomes of conservation education on the live-streaming platform Twitch
  • Levin, M. O., Kross, S. M., Kirsch, D. G., Higa, M., Miliotti, C., Garcia, R., & Chang, C. H.
  • Case Studies in the Environment
Automating the analysis of public saliency and attitudes toward biodiversity from digital media
  • Giebink, N., Gupta, A., Veríssimo, D., Chang, C. H., Chang, T., Brennan, A., Dickson, B. G., Bowmer, A., & Baillie, J.
  • Conservation Biology

2025

Misalignment of climate investment and carbon mitigation potential in US venture capital markets
  • Gowda Thanh Quang Rohan*, Charlotte Chang, & Nikhil Deshmukh
  • Environmental Research: Energy
New opportunities and challenges for conservation evidence synthesis from advances in natural language processing
  • Chang, C. H., Cook-Patton, S. C., Erbaugh, J. T., Lu, L., Masuda, Y. J., Molnár, I., Papp, D., & Robinson, B. E.
  • Conservation Biology
Global evidence of human well-being and biodiversity impacts of natural climate solutions
  • Chang, C. H., Erbaugh, J. T., Fajardo, P., et al.
  • Nature Sustainability
Identifying the knowledge and capacity gaps in Southeast Asian insect conservation
  • Ong, X. R., Tan, B., Chang, C. H., Puniamoorthy, N., & Slade, E. M.
  • Ecology Letters

2024

Communication and deliberation for environmental governance
  • Erbaugh, J. T., Chang, C. H., Masuda, Y. J., & Ribot, J.
  • Annual Review of Environment and Resources

2023

US-based and international environmental non-governmental organizations use social media, but few have large audiences online
  • Kim*, H., Masuda, Y., Armsworth, P. R., & Chang, C. H.
  • Conservation Science & Practice
Anticipating anthropogenic threats in acquiring new protected areas
  • Albers, H. J., Chang, C. H., Dissanayake, S., Helmstedt, K. J., Kroetz, K., Dilkina, B., Zapata- Morán, I., Nolte, C., Ochoa-Ochoa, L. M., & Spencer, G.
  • Conservation Biology
Environmental users abandoned Twitter after Musk takeover

2022

Environmental discourse exhibits consistency and variation across spatial scales on Twitter
  • Chang, C. H., Masuda, Y. J., & Armsworth, P. R.
  • BioScience
Twitter data reveal six distinct environmental personas

2021

Modeling hunting and harvesting interactions between plants and their seed dispersers
  • De Angeli*, K. I., Abbasi*, E., Gan*, A., Ingram, D., Giam, X., & Chang, C. H.
  • Ecological Modelling

2020

What does it mean to be for a Place?
  • Borrelle, S. B., Koch, J. B., & others with Chang, C. H.
  • Pacific Conservation Biology

2019

Perceived entertainment and recreational value motivate illegal hunting in Southwest China
  • Chang, C. H., Williams, S. J., Quan, R.-C., Zhang, M., Levin, S. A., & Wilcove, D. S.
  • Biological Conservation

2018

Examining conservation compliance with randomized response technique analyses
  • Chang, C. H., Cruyff, M. J., & Giam, X.
  • Conservation Biology
Should I shoot or should I go? Simple rules for prey selection in multi-species hunting systems
Birds and beans: Comparing avian richness and endemism in arabica and robusta agroforests in India's Western Ghats.

2017

The pleasure of pursuit: recreational hunters in rural Southwest China exhibit low exit rates in response to declining catch
  • Chang, C. H., Barnes, M. L., Frye, M., Zhang, M., Quan, R.-C., Reisman, L. M. G., Levin, S. A., & Wilcove, D. S.
  • Ecology & Society
Habitat Loss on Rondon's Marmoset Potential Distribution
  • Ochoa-Quintero, J. M., Chang, C. H., Gardner, T. A., Rezende Messias, M., Sutherland, W. J., & Delben, F. A.
  • Land
Natural forest at landscape scale is most important for bird conservation in rubber plantation
  • Zhang, M., Chang, C., & Quan, R.
  • Biological Conservation

2013

Ambushing the ambush hypothesis: Predicting and evaluating off-frame codon frequencies in prokaryotic genomes
  • Morgens, D. W., Chang, C. H., & Cavalcanti, A. R.
  • BMC Genomics

2012

A horizon scanning assessment of current and potential future threats to migratory shorebirds
  • Sutherland, W. J., Alves, J. A., Amano, T., Chang, C. H., Davidson, N. C., Max Finlayson, C., Gill, J. A., Gill Jr, R. E., González, P. M., Gunnarsson, T. G. et al.
  • Ibis

2010

Salted roads and sodium limitation in a northern forest ant community
  • Kaspari, M., Chang, C., & Weaver, J.
  • Ecological Entomology

Teaching

Selected Events

Photo credit: Nikhil Deshmukh