DERT

I am an undergraduate student majoring in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Conservation Biology and Ecology. I am particularly passionate about preserving sensitive ecosystems and understanding the unique ecological relationships within desert environments. In the Spring of 2025, I will begin my Master's research project studying how post-fire conditions affect plant communities and small mammal communities in the Sonoran Desert. Arid and semi-arid ecosystems are extremely vulnerable to climate change, invasive species, and human activities, yet they remain severely understudied and misunderstood. My goal is to address the knowledge gap between fire resiliency in desert ecosystems and post-fire effects to promote biodiversity.

I am a Ph.D. student in Environmental Life Sciences at the Drylands Ecosystems Lab, where I focus on understanding carbon dynamics in dryland ecosystems. My research examines changes in organic and inorganic carbon, with a particular interest in the interactions between carbon pools and fluxes. Currently, I am investigating the long-term effects of litter manipulation on soil carbon and nitrogen in semi-desert grasslands, with my work based at an experimental site in the Santa Rita region. As I progress through this Ph.D. journey, I am confident that I will expand my knowledge, develop valuable skills, publish impactful research, and contribute meaningfully to the community and the world. "The sky is not the limit!".

I am a first year PhD student. I am interested in microbial ecology in dryland systems. My previous research projects have developed my interest in this particular discipline. My past work has included  assessment of the recovery of hypolithic cyanobacteria after mining disturbance and my Master’s project focused how fire history affects soil nutrients, soil carbon, and soil respiration in a semi-arid savanna. For my PhD project, I am investigating how plants influence on soil biogeochemistry and taxonomic and functional diversity of soil microbial communities in the hyper-arid Namib Desert. Describing plant influences on soil biogeochemistry and soil microbial communities will help us to understand how ecological functions may be altered with future climate change in hyper-arid systems, in order to inform better management and biogeochemical models.

As a broadly trained ecologist specializing in cutting-edge isotopic and molecular techniques, I investigate the biosynthesis and movement of essential compounds within and among organisms across a variety of systems and scales. This approach allows me to explore interactions among primary production, decomposition, and microbial function and characterize subsequent effects on nutrient cycling, consumer fitness, and food web stability. Most of my work is centered in the western United States, where environmental changes and anthropogenic activities are heavily impacting many aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In my current position, I am studying leaf litter decomposition at microsite- to continental- scales across North American drylands, with field sites in the Chihuahuan, Great Basin, and Sonoran Deserts.

I am and Environmental Life Sciences Ph.D. student, broadly interested in learning about how plants physiologically change in response environmental stressors related to climate change, such as increased air temperatures and drought, and how those small-scale changes compound into larger impacts at the population, community, and ecosystem level. The main question I am currently interested in is what are the thermal boundaries for plants species exposed to high temperatures and is there plasticity in those related mechanisms. I am studying the temporal changes in leaf heat acclimation (daily, weekly, and seasonally) across a large range of species, the boundaries of thermal tolerance where leaf recovery is and is not possible, and incorporating physiological response data with traditional species distribution modeling to create mechanistic niche models for ecologically important plant taxa

I study how carbon and nutrients cycle through plants, soils, and the atmosphere. Much my work addresses how these cycles respond to human-caused changes in the environment, such as climate change and changing human land use. My work is primarily based in arid and semi-arid environments. These 'drylands' contain a large and rapidly increasing portion of the world's human population, particularly in developing nations where human livelihoods are often tightly linked to sustainable use of drylands. My current projects include work in drylands sites in Arizona, New Mexico, eastern Oregon, Australia and Namibia.