Dr. Hu is the Director of the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, an Affiliate Faculty with the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, and serves as principal investigator for the Hu lab (thehulab.com), which studies global ecosystems and relationships between plants, water, soil and climate.  Prior to working with the University of Arizona, Jia held positions at Montana State University, the University of Sydney, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Colorado State University.  She earned her BA in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado.