Ann Carla Staver is an American researcher and a professor of Ecology atPrinceton University. She is known for her research on the ecology of tropical savannas and forests
Staver had her undergraduate education atColumbia University where she obtained a B.A in Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology in 2005. She then pursued a Master of Science degree in Botany at theUniversity of Cape Town. She went on to complete her doctoral studies atPrinceton University where she was awarded a Ph.D. in Ecology and Environmental Biology in 2012.[1]
Following the completion of her doctoral studies, she became a Prize Postdoctoral Fellow atColumbia University before joiningYale University in 2014 where she was promoted to full professor in 2024.[1] In 2020, she testified to the US House of Representatives Natural Resource Committee.[2] In July 2025 Staver moved to Princeton University.[3]
Staver is a fire ecologist whose research expertise is focused in savanna ecosystems, especially at the boundary between savanna and forest. She uses a combination of empirical and modeling approaches to understand how local interactions of trees with their resource and disturbance environment (usually fire and herbivory) could predict regional and global patterns in tree cover and biome distribution.[4] A portion of her work centers on the concept of tropical forest and savanna bi-stability, the idea that under the same climatic envelope, tropical savannas and forests could exist as alternative stable states maintained by fire-vegetation feedback.[5][6]
