My research merges theory, experiments, and data science to mechanistically link individual organisms to the environment through traits, then scale these interactions up to understand complex, emergent patterns across organizational, spatial, and temporal scales. Resolving how traits mediate the effects of rapid global change on individual physiology/metabolism, thus reorganizing the flux of energy and matter within ecosystems, is central to this goal. I study a variety of taxa and systems, from synthetic “microecosystems” in the lab to forests and food webs throughout the world. This flexibility opens up exciting opportunities to explore fundamental concepts in ecology and evolution across scales, while also addressing critical responses to a rapidly changing world.