Chelsie Romulo

• Ph.D. George Mason University, Environmental Science and Policy
• M.S. Virginia Tech, Natural Resource Management
• B.S. California Polytechnic State University SLO, Biology and Animal Science

• Research Assistant, Global Synthesis of Climate Change Effects on Inland Fish, NCCWSC – USGS, 2016 – Present
• Graduate Pursuit Team Member, National Socio-Ecological Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Enabling Conditions for Payments for Watershed Services in Large Cities, 2014 – Present
• GIS Analyst, Global Owl Project, Arlington, VA, 2011 -present
• Environmental Analyst, Mangi Environmental Group, McLean, VA, 2009 – 2016

Natural Resource Management

Under the umbrella of natural resource management, my research focuses on evaluating stakeholder decision-making and management strategies, applying the behavioral economic and management theories of Common Pool Resources and Adaptive Management to Non-Timber Forest Products and Ecosystem Services. My research asks what contextual characteristics and policy or management strategies influence or correlate with natural resource management activities. I use remote sensing and GIS techniques to describe land use and land cover changes and qualitative interview analysis to assess market chain interactions and motivations. To explain environmental impacts and responses to policy and management decisions, I combine social and natural science data in variable importance and causal inference models

STEM Education

With funding from the National Science Foundation program called Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE), I am leading a research team in developing an assessment tool for teaching and learning complex concepts related to the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. Specifically, we apply an established machine learning method of evaluating constructed response (short answer) questions to create a Next Generation Concept Inventory (NGCI). This new approach to concept inventory construction creates a new set of constructed-response items and associated automated scoring models focused on the complex systems typically addressed in environmental programs.

Manzanares, A.*, Horne, L., Royse, E., Azzarello, C.*, Jarchow, M., Druckenbrod, D., Babin, N., ` Atalan-Helicke, N., Vincent, S., Anderson, S., & Romulo, C. 2026. Undergraduate students’ knowledge about the relationships between climate change and the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. https://doi-org.unco.idm.oclc.org/10.1108/IJSHE-06-2024-0379

Wang, H.*, Haudek, K. C., Manzanares*, A. D., Romulo, C. L., Royse, E. A., & Azzarello*, C. B. (2025). Extending a pretrained language model (BERT) using an ontological perspective to classify students’ scientific expertise level from written responses. Disciplinary & Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 7(1), 1-22, Article 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-025-00149-5 

von Furstenberg, R., Larson, L. R., Peterson, M. N., Lee, K. J., Vayer, V., Lee, K. J., Stevenson, K., Nelson, S., Bruskotter, J., Ahlers, A. A., Anhalt-Depies, C., Bethke, T., Chizinki, C. J., Clark, B., Davan, K., Dayer, A. A., Ghasemi, B., Gigliotti, L., Graefe, A., Keith, S., Kelly, M., Kyle, G., Metcalf, E., Morse, W., Needham, M., Poudyal, N., Quartuch, M., Rodriguez, S., Romulo, C., Sharp, R., Siemer, W., Springer, M., Stedman, R., Stein, T., van Deelen, T., Whiting, J., Winkler, R., & Woosnam, K. M. (Accepted 2025). Environmental identities of college students reveal potential conflicts and common ground for wildlife conservation. Biological Conservation.

Azzarello, C. B.*, Vincent, S., Manzanares, A., Anderson, S., Romulo, C., Druckenbrod, D., & Knobloch, N. (2025). Transdisciplinary orientation scale scores as an indicator of undergraduate environmental course capacities development. Interdisciplinary Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 21(4), e2517. https://doi.org/10.29333/ijese/16900 

Bywater-Reyes, S., C. Lukens, A. Metz*, C. Romulo. 2025. Quantifying Erosion Susceptibility along a Lithologic and Trail Type Gradient (Colorado Front Range, USA) with Implications for Management. Catena. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2025.109074

Royse, E.A., A. D. Manzanares*, H. Wang, K.C. Haudek, C.B. Azzarello*, L. R. Horne, D.L. Druckenbrod, M.M. Shiroda, S.R. Adams, E. Fairchild, S. Vincent, S.W. Anderson, C.L. Romulo. 2024. FEW questions, many answers: using machine learning to assess how students connect food-energy-water concepts. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. V 11, Article number: 1033. DOI: 10.1057/s41599-024-03499-z 

Stokes, G.L., Lynch, A.J., Flores, J.V. Wong, J.P., Morang, C., Romulo, C., Funge-Smith, S., Valbo-Jorgensen, J., & S.J. Smidt. 2024.  Coupled automated-manual literature review to inform the management of major inland fisheries. Conservation Science and Practice. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13167

Romulo, C., Venkataraman, B., Caplow, S., Ajgaonkar, S., Allen, C. R., Anandhi, A., … & Vincent, S. G. (2024). Implementing interdisciplinary sustainability education with the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1-17.

Horne, L., A Manzanares*, N. Atalan-Helicke, S. Vincent, S. W. Anderson, and C. Romulo. 2024. An exploratory study of drawings as a tool to evaluate student understanding of the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. https://doi-org.unco.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s13412-024-00929-x

Vayer, V. R.., von Furstenberg, R., Larson, L. R., Peterson, M. N., Lee, K. J., Stevenson, K., Ahlers, A. A., Anhalt-Depies, C., Bethke, T., Clark, B., Dayer, A. A., Davan, K., Fisher, T., Ghasemi, B., Gigliotti, L., Graefe, A., Irwin, K., Keith, S., Kelly, M., Kyle, G., Metcalf, E., Needham, M. D., Poudyal, N., Quartuch, M., Rodriguez, S., Romulo, C., Sharp, R. L., Siemer, W., Springer, M., Stedman, R., Stein, T., van Deelen, T., Whiting, J., Winkler, R. L., & Woosnam, K. M. 2023. Evaluating the impacts of R3 workshops for first-time hunters at universities across the United States. Wildlife Society Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.1482 

Horne, L., Manzanares, A*., Babin, N., Royse, E., Arawaka, L., Blavascunas, E., Doner, L., Druckenbrod, D., Fairchild, E., Jarchow, M., Muchnick, B., Panday, P., Perry, D., Thomas, B., Toomey, A., Tucker, B., Washington-Ottombre, C., Vincent, S., Anderson, S., & Romulo, C. 2023. Alignment among environmental programs in higher education: What Food-Energy-Water concepts are we covering in introductory courses? Journal of Geoscience Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2187680 

Deichmann, J., Souto, T., Alonso, A., Carrasco, F.., Dodge, M., Dallmeier, F., Gregory, T., Richards, R., Romulo, C., Vanthomme, H., and M.L. Richardson. 2022. 9 Conservation Principles: Fostering Collaboration for Nature Positive Outcomes. Amplify 3(11).

Romulo, C.L., Gilmore, M.P., Endress, B.A., and Horn, C. 2022. Maurita flexuosa fruit production increases with increasing palm height in the Peruvian Amazon. Plants, People, Planet, 1-6. http://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10299

Romulo, C. L., Posner, S., Cousins, S., Fair, J. H., Bennett, D. E., Huber-Stearns, H., Richards, R.I., and McDonald, R. I. (2018). Global state and potential scope of investments in watershed services for large cities.Nature communications, 9(1), 4375.

Wallen, K. E., and C. L. Romulo. 2017. Social norms: more details, please. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1704451114

Huber-Stearns, H., Bennet, D., Richards, R., Romulo, C., Cousins, S., and Hoyle, J. 2017.Social-Ecological Enabling Conditions for Environmental Policies: A Review of Current Dialogues with an Illustrative Focus on Payments for Ecosystem Services. Ecology and Society. 22(1):18. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08979-220118

Virapongse, A., Endress, B.A., Gilmore, M.P., Horn, C. and C. Romulo. 2017. Ecology, livelihoods, and management of the Mauritia flexuosa palm in South America. Global Ecology and Conservation, 10, pp.70-92.

Nelson, J., Gerasimova, D., Samaras, A., Bland, L., Hjalmarson, M., Kester, M., Romulo, C., Battistini, A., Crowell, A., Ericson, R. and Ewell, M., 2016, July. Implementation of interactive teaching strategies across STEM disciplines. In Innovations in Teaching & Learning Conference Proceedings (Vol. 8, p. 2).

Schwebach, J.R., Gerasimova, D., Luther, D.A., Verhoeven, A.B., Davis, C., Gostel, M., Romulo, C., Schreffler, L., Seshaiyer, P., Nelson, J.K. 2016.Advancing Graduate Education and Faculty Development with Discipline Based Education Research and the SIMPLE Framework: Design Memos in Biology for Active Teaching. Athens J. of Education

* Designates Student Co-Author

AESS Early Career Award 2021