The Arid Lands Resource Sciences faculty consists of more than 70 members, providing the
multidisciplinary breadth necessary for teaching and mentoring students with a wide range of interests:
- Roger Angel, Regents Professor, Astronomy and Optical Sciences
Adaptive optics, Instrumentation, Extrasolar planets, Telescope design and optical fabrication, Geoengineering, Concentrating photovoltaic solar energy
- Steven R. Archer, Regents Professor Emeritus, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Plant ecology and ecosystem sciences, interdisciplinary research on dry-land plant community dynamics and succession, with an emphasis on grass-woody plant interactions in relation to soils, climate, disturbance, and land use.
- Alberto Arenas, Professor, Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies, College of Education
Greening of formal education, green vocational and technical education, decolonization of education with a focus on restoring culturally-rich, non-commodified knowledge and skills.
- Diane Austin, Professor and Director, School of Anthropology and Research Anthropologist, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology
Long-term, multi-sectoral partnerships with governmental, non-governmental, academic, and business organizations, with emphasis on the development of community-based participatory research approaches.
- Laura Bakkensen, Associate Professor, School of Government and Public Policy
Her research informs public policy on insurance regulation, pre- and post-disaster aid, severe weather warnings, and public adaptation projects.
- Jeffrey Banister, Director, Southwest Center; Associate Research Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment
His research and teaching focus primarily on resource governance and politics in the US-Mexico borderlands, Mexico, and Latin America.
- Mamadou A. Baro, Associate Professor, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology
Development, household livelihood security, applied anthropology, land tenure, gender and international development with special focus on Africa and the Caribbean, and research methodology.
- Greg Barron-Gafford, Associate Professor, School of Geography Development and Environment
Leaf, soil, and ecosystem scale fluxes of carbon and water in response to vegetative and climatic change.
- Carl J. Bauer, Professor & Director, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Comparative and international water law and policy in different contexts of Chile, Eastern U.S., Spain, and Mexico.
- Paloma Beamer, Professor, Chemical & Environmental Engineering
Collect of multi-media exposure samples for metals, pesticides and VOCs with minority and rural populations, environmental contamination, health risks of exposure on vulnerable populations.
- Michael Bogan, Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Focuses on how disturbance and dispersal processes shape local and regional biodiversity patterns in aquatic and riparian ecosystems, including the impacts of drought on arid-land streams.
- James Buizer, Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment; Founding Director, AIRES
Climate Adaptation and Sustainability, Global Change Management.
- Megan Carney, Assistant Professor, School of Anthropology; Director, Center for Regional Food Studies
Transnational and gendered migration; food and food systems; immigration policy; health inequality; food and migration; the anthropology of food, fermentation, and microbes; ethnographic research methods; and migrant health in the Americas and the Mediterranean.
- Nader Chalfoun, Professor Emeritus, Architecture and Environmental Sciences
Energy conservation, passive solar architecture, outdoor environmental comfort, green building materials, and sustainable architecture.
- Karletta Chief, Associate Professor, Department of Hydrology & Atmospheric Sciences, American Indian Studies
Watershed hydrology, arid and semi-arid lands, soil hydrology, and how indigenous communities are affected by climate change.
- Bonnie G. Colby, Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Resource economics, impacts of climate change on resource utilization and value of natural areas, hydrology and water resources.
- Andrew C. Comrie, Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment; Chief Academic Officer, Arizona Board of Regents
Climatology, air pollution, environmental issues.
- Pearce Paul Creasman, Director, American Center of Oriental Research; Editor, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections
The study of human and environmental interactions, maritime archaeology, dendroarchaeology, and Egyptian archaeology.
- Michael Crimmins, Professor & Extension Specialist, Department of Environmental Science
Increasing climate science literacy and developing strategies to adapt to a changing climate. Implementation of drought preparedness and impact monitoring plans.
- Jonathan Jae-an Crisman, Assistant Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
Current research focuses on the role that art and culture can play as forms of political engagement in gentrifying cities, and (with collaborator Maite Zubiaurre) on the forensic, cultural, and political practices around migrant death in the Borderlands.
- Joel Cuello, Professor, Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering
Applying engineering to put biological systems to work. Bioreactor design & secondary metabolite production.
- Altaf Engineer, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
Research interests include social, cultural, and behavioral factors in design with a special focus on daylighting, health and wellbeing.
- Kacey C. Ernst, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Examining the links between environment and environmental change and infectious disease transmission; particularly vector-borne diseases.
- Margaret Evans, Associate Professor, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
Plant population biologist with research focused in two areas - conservation ecology, including the development of general tools for population and range modeling, as well as building knowledge about particular rare species; and evolutionary ecology, including bet hedging, life history evolution, breeding system evolution, and comparative analyses of the evolution of climatic niches.
- Thomas Evans, Professor, School of Geography, Development & Environment
Dynamics of human-environment relationships including land use, agricultural decision-making, food security and environmental governance.
- Daniel Ferguson, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Science; Director, AIRES Climate Assessment for the Southwest
Arid Lands, Climate Adaptation and Sustainability, Social Dimensions of Natural Resource Management.
- Timothy J. Finan, Professor, School of Anthropology; Research Anthropologist, Bureau of Applied Research & Anthropology
Applied anthropology, cultural and societal impacts of climate vulnerability, famine vulnerability and early warning.
- Larry A Fisher, Research Professor, School of Natural Resources & the Environment
Climate Adaptation and Sustainability, Ecosystem Services, Global Change Management Social Dimensions of Natural Resource Management, Watershed Management.
- Jeff Fehmi, Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Restoration ecology; mineland reclamation; revegetation of denuded lands; quantitative methods; plant community distributions; accuracy of plant community determinations from aerial photographs on the Goldwater range; impacts of vehicle traffic on vegetation; military training on military lands.
- Edward Franklin, Associate Professor, Agriculture Education, Technology and Innovation
Principles and practices of agricultural mechanization; turf and landscape technology; applications in agricultural mechanics; operations in agricultural mechanics; and instructional materials development.
- Rachel Gallery, Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Conservation biology, genetics and molecular ecology; plant and soil ecology; population and community ecology.
- Gregg M. Garfin, Professor and Associate Extension Specialist, School of Natural Resources and the Environment; Director, AIRES Science Translation (Note: Not available as a primary advisor)
Research Topics: Climate Adaptation and Sustainability; Global Change Management; and Watershed Management.
- Andrea Gerlak, Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment; Director, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy
Water governance and policy; Global environmental policy, transboundary Waters; Groundwater management; Resilience, adaptation, social-ecological systems.
- Elise Gornish, Cooperative Extension Specialist in Ecological Restoration, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Trait based restoration approaches, restoration for multiple ecosystem services, the use of restoration in weed management, and spatially patterned seeding.
- Phillip D. Guertin, Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Watershed hydrology and management; watershed assessment and planning; nonpoint source pollution; geographic information science and technology.
- Zackry Guido, Director, AIRES International Programs
His research interests include quantifying climate impacts on water resources (including glaciers), coproducing end-to-end climate services, and advancing climate risk management through participatory processes.
- Leslie Gunatilaka, Professor, School of Natural Resources & the Environment; Director, Southwest Center for Natural Products Research & Commercialization
Application of natural product chemistry to solve problems of human and animal health and agriculture.
- Vance Holliday, Professor, School of Anthropology & Geosciences, School of Geography, Development, and Environment, Department of Geosciences
Geoarchaeology; paleoindian archaeology, soil-geomorphology, quaternary landscape evolution and paleoenvironments.
- Malcolm Hughes, Regents Professor Emeritus, Dendrochronology, The Laboratory of the Tree-Ring Research
Climatology, modeling, dendrochronology. Specific areas of interest include past climate in Europe, Asia, and the Sierra Nevada, as indicated by tree rings.
- Aletheia Ida, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
She integrates design theory in her research for emergent environmental building technologies, incorporating aspects of material inventions with socio-environmental performance criteria through innovative digital and physical prototyping methods.
- Michael K. Johnson, Indigenous Resilience Specialist, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, indigenous conservation and land management techniques, indigenous dryland agriculture systems, and food production.
- Anna Josephson, Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics
Individuals and households in around the world, working on risk, development, food security, and agriculture. Much of this research is centered in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, as well as Asia, including Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines.
- Mark Kear, Assistant Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Financial Geography, Urban Geography, Ethnography, Urban Poverty, Financial Exclusion, Financial Literacy, Financial Empowerment, Governmentality, Biopolitics, Credit and Debt, Personal/Consumer Finance, Financial Regulation, Payment Systems.
- Ladd Keith, Assistant Professor, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning; Chair, Sustainable Built Environments
His research is at the intersection of urban planning and climate science and explores how policy innovation in local governance can make more sustainable and resilient cities.
- Diana Liverman, Regents Professor Emerita, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Global change, climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, climate change and food security, and climate policy, mitigation and justice especially in the developing world.
- Margaret Livingston, Professor, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
Urban ecologist whose work emphasizes the importance of evaluating and maintaining natural and semi-natural ecosystems within and surrounding urban areas. In her role as a designer, she focuses on the use of native plants and design of urban wildlife spaces.
- Laura Lopez-Hoffman, Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment; Assistant Research Professor, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy
Conservation biology and policy, trans-boundary conservation, ecosystem services.
- Stuart E. Marsh, Emeritus Director and Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Land use and land cover change; impacts of climate and anthropogenic change on arid lands; remote sensing; application of geospatial technologies to environmental studies; development of decision support systems for natural resource management.
- Mitchel P. McClaran, Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment; Director for Research, Santa Rita Experimental Range; Associate Director, Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station
Rangeland plant ecology and management, with particular emphasis on arid grasslands and savannas.
- Alison M. Meadow, Associate Research Professor, Office of Societal Impact
Research Interests: Climate and Adaptation, Anthropology, Climate assessment, Climate change, Human Dimensions, Native Nations, Science engagement, connecting science and decision making.
- Sharon B. Megdal, Director, Water Resources Research Center; Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics; Director, Water Sustainability Program
State and regional water resources management and policy, with areas of focus including storage and recovery programs, regional approaches to water management, ecosystem restoration, and the role of the private sector in water delivery.
- Istvan Molnar, Professor Emeritus, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Biosynthetic engineering, microbial genetics, combinatorial biosynthesis, genomics, biocatalysis, industrial biotechnology, drug discovery, natural products, antibiotics, anticancer agents, biofuels.
- David Moore, Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Climate adaptation and sustainability; ecohydrology & biogeochemistry; geospatial science & modeling; global change management; plant & soil ecology; and remote sensing.
- Katherine G. Morrissey, Associate Professor, Department of History
Research on the North American West focuses on the region's environmental, social, cultural, and intellectual history.
- Thomas K. Park, Associate Professor, School of Anthropology; Associate Professor (NES); Associate Research Anthropologist (BARA)
Urbanization in Africa and the Middle East, complexity theory, economic theory, mathematical methodologies in anthropology and history, the history of credit, flood recession agriculture, the Sahara, the Sahel, North Africa, development, economic history, North African Arabic archives, bureaucracy in Africa and the Middle East, colonialism & imperialism, anthropology of law, Islam, land tenure, 18th to 21st C European philosophy, foragers in arid lands, pastoralism, Pyrrhonic skepticism, political ecology.
- Charlotte Pearson, Associate Professor, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
Carbon 14 in single tree-rings analysis, dendrochronological approaches to the chronology of the Ancient Mediterranean and dendrochemical approaches to dating the onset of environmental disturbances (in particular volcanic eruptions).
- David M. Quanrud, Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Arid lands; ecohydrology and biogeochemistry; sustainability; water quality and water resources management.
- Dennis T. Ray, University Distinguished Professor & Faculty Fellow, School of Plant Sciences, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Evaluate new crops and products for cultivation and processing in arid environments.
- Tristan Reader, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of American Indian Studies, McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship
Indigenous food sovereignty; Native American wellness and public health; Native American economic hybridity & social entrepreneurship; cultural revitalization theory and practice; indigenous and Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodologies; global food movements and food sovereignty; sustainable and culturally-based community development; community empowerment and quantum leadership; and indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies.
- Jeffrey C. Silvertooth, Professor / Associate Dean / Director, Economic Development and Extension, Soil, Water and Environmental Science
Development of crop production management strategies that optimize the soil-plant system agronomically and economically, with full consideration of the short- and long-term impact of inputs environmentally.
- Donald C. Slack, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biosystems Engineering
On farm water management practices; irrigation systems & technologies; watershed hydrology; erosion control; biofuels from Sorghum.
- Steven E. Smith, Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, Department of Plant Sciences
Climate adaptation and sustainability; conservation biology; geospatial science & modeling; plant genetics & improvement; evolutionary ecology.
- William Kolby Smith, Associate Professor, Land - Water - Climate / Geospatial Analysis
Arid Lands, Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry, Ecology Management and Restoration of Rangelands, Geospatial Science and Modeling, Remote Sensing.
- Jose Soto, Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Climate Adaptation and Sustainability, Ecology Management and Restoration of Rangelands, Ecosystem Services, Invasive Species, Social Dimensions of Natural Resource Management.
- Richard W. Stoffle, Professor, School of Anthropology
Cultural anthropology; social impact assessment; developmental anthropology; Native Americans; Caribbean industrial anthropology; fisheries; ethnobotany; satellite imagery.
- Philip Stoker, Associate Professor, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
Research interests include: urban water demand and the integration of land use planning with water management.
- Susan Swanberg, Assistant Professor, Journalism
Telomere biology, autism genetics, reporting, sciences journalism, environmental journalism, media law, criminal law, public understanding of science and intersection of law, science, and journalism.
- Robert Torres, Professor and Department Head, Agricultural Education, Technology and Innovation
Advances in career and technical education in agriculture.
- Valerie Trouet, Associate Professor, Laboratory of Tree Ring Research
Main research interest is the tree-ring based reconstruction of climate dynamical patterns and their influence on terrestrial ecosystems and ecosystem disturbances.
- Juan B. Valdes, Professor Emeritus, Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences
Stochastic and deterministic hydrology; flood forecasting; mathematical models of natural resources systems; modeling of space-time precipitation; environmental risk assessment; and stochastic modeling of environmental processes.
- Willem Van Leeuwen, Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Land surface phenology; biogeography; remote sensing science and applications of coupled natural and human systems; geospatial & temporal decision support systems and tools for land and water management; assessing impact of fire and drought on vegetation response dry lands around the world.
- Robert G. Varady, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Policy, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Environmental policy and environmental history with emphasis on trans-boundary issues, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Note: Unavailable as a primary advisor)
- Connie Woodhouse, Regents Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Climate and paleoclimate of western North America, with emphasis on drought and water issues; reconstruction of past climate and hydrology using tree rings, analysis of past and current climate variability, and the investigation of circulation features that influence regional climate.
- David A. Yetman, Research Social Scientist, Southwest Studies Center
Ecology and rural development relating to southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, ethnobotany, border issues.
- Adriana Zuniga Teran, Assistant Professor, School of Geography, Development and Environment
Explores questions related to green infrastructure and urban resilience, environmental justice, water security in cities of Latin America, groundwater governance, and other environmental issues in arid lands.