Joel Biederman is a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Arizona’s department of hydrology and water resources. His research investigates how vegetation change may alter key processes in the cycling of water, energy, and biogeochemicals. He is studying how pine tree die-off may alter the ways in which forested ecosystems catch, store, and release snow. Joel seeks to develop his results into predictive tools that improve the resilience of our water management systems. Joel was trained in water resources at Montana State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering. He subsequently conducted water supply and wastewater treatment research at the National Science Foundation Center for Biofilm Engineering and taught high school math and physics. Joel lives in Tucson with his wife and two young children.
Scholars 2011
Carson/Earth Fellowship
Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Andrea Corral, a Ph.D. student in the UA’s department of chemical and environmental engineering, focuses on solar membrane distillation (SMD). The objective of her research is to investigate and deploy an autonomous (off-grid) system to pump and treat brackish groundwater using solar energy. The project centers on the use of membrane distillation technology to supply water for livestock and potable use on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona, where a sustainable water supply depends on the use of brackish and reclaimed water. In SMD, solar-heated, brackish water is fed into a hydrophobic membrane fiber, while air passing outside collects the water vapor passing through the membrane. As the air cools to room temperature, the water vapor condenses as pure product.
Natural Resources and the Environment
Zack Guido is a Ph.D. student in the UA’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment. His research takes him to the lofty peaks of the Bolivian Cordillera Real, where about two million people rely in part on water melting from rapidly retreating glaciers. Scientists do not know how much of the water supply is fed by glaciers, however, and estimates for sustainable water use cannot be made without quantifying this input. To resolve this issue, Zack is measuring environmental tracers in rivers, glacial melt water, precipitation, and groundwater. He also is analyzing satellite images during the past 10 years—the warmest decade on record—to identify basins in which melt is most rapid and locations where glaciers likely soon will vanish. Hard science, however, often fails to engage people emotionally—perhaps a key reason why climate change often is ignored. To communicate consequences of melting glaciers, Zack is video-logging climate change stories of Andean people, a communication project he hopes to link to high school curricula in the U.S.
Anthropology
Lucero Radonic is a Ph.D. student in the UA’s School of Anthropology whose research seeks to bring environmental anthropology to the city. Her dissertation focuses on the impact that long-term drought and accelerated urban growth have on urban livelihoods and water accessibility, especially for minority groups already at the margins of hydraulic development. In Hermosillo, Sonora, water scarcity is a central issue in state politics and part of people's daily experience. Lucero’s research analyzes how urban indigenous Yaqui neighborhoods organize and mobilize to address their need for water infrastructure. Her work integrates in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, community-mapping exercises, and discourse analysis of Sonora’s current hydraulic plan.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Tyeen Taylor, a Ph.D. student in the UA’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, focuses his research on tropical forest responses and feedbacks to climate change. His study sites are Biosphere 2 and the Amazon forest. The Amazon forest contains a quarter of the world’s land species, and, through photosynthesis and respiration, processes twice the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted by humans each year. Any responses of the Amazon forest to climate change will have large feedbacks to global climate and biodiversity. Ty identifies forest microhabitats that resemble the projected future climate (i.e., drier and hotter in the Amazon). He uses these to analyze the effects of the future climate on forest composition and function. Specifically, he analyzes the differences in tree functional characteristics, like wood and leaf traits, and the (phylogenetic) structure of tree species assemblages between these microhabitats and the surrounding matrix of forest living under normal climate conditions. Results from his research will inform more accurate climate models and the identification of conservation priorities in the Amazon.
English
Kenneth Walker is a Ph.D. student in the UA’s English department. He is interested in how rhetoric and writing can fuse research and teaching to serve science and technology communications in the public sphere. As a member of the UA’s highly-regarded Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English (RCTE) program, his historical work in rhetoric uses research methods that are replicable, agreeable, and data-driven to trace scientific arguments as they travel and transform from technical, to civic, to personal forums. In his recent work, he uses reception methods to show how Rachel Carson assimilated scientific uncertainty from her sources and drafted them into a site for public participation in Silent Spring. In his pedagogical scholarship, his research shows how genre theory and computer technologies can improve writing and rhetorical practices within each discipline and across the curriculum. His goal is to conduct relevant historical and pedagogical scholarship in rhetoric and writing and broadly apply this work in academic, professional, and public contexts.
Carson/B2 Science and Society Fellowship
Geography and Development
Mindy Butterworth is a Ph.D. student in the School of Geography and Development and a Global Change minor. She earned a B.A. in geography and a B.S. in psychology with a minor in biology, as well as a M.S. in geography from Virginia Tech. Informed by this interdisciplinary background, Mindy focuses on the human-environment interactions underlying health and disease. Her current work explores how climate and the physical environment, in conjunction with more "invisible" forces such as public and institutional (i.e. vector control and public health departments) management of mosquitoes, influence the emergence of dengue fever.
Geography and Development
Lily House-Peters is a Ph.D. student in the School of Geography and Development and a Graduate Research Associate with the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. Her research focuses on river ecosystems in the US-Mexico border region. These biodiversity hotspots are under mounting pressure from excessive groundwater pumping to sustain cities and agriculture in the region. Using satellite imagery, climate data, and interview data, Lily’s research seeks to trace and assess regional patterns of land use change and the impacts on both the human and non-human communities who depend on the river ecosystems for their survival. As a Biosphere 2 Science & Society Fellow, Lily will be sharing her project, “Land Use Change, Climate Variability, and Riparian Resilience” with the public.
Natural Resources and the Environment
Melissa Merrick is a Ph.D. student in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Melissa is interested in the ecology of sky island mammals, particularly as it relates to species diversity, endemism, and space use in the face of multiple disturbance events such as fire and invasive species. Her research is focused on survival, space use, and natal dispersal in juvenile Mt. Graham red squirrels. Through this research Melissa hopes to learn whether juvenile survival is related to natal dispersal movements, whether natal dispersal is sex biased, how far individuals go, and how does forest damage from insects and wildfire influence movement behavior and habitat use. She is investigating possible triggers for settlement including forest structural characteristics, food availability, density of neighbors, and the role individual behavioral differences may play in this process.
Anthropology
Matthew Pailes is a Ph.D. student in the School of Anthropology. He developed an interest in anthropology through his travels in the U.S. Marine Corps. His overseas experiences sparked a curiosity in how humans solve two basic problems. How do you get enough food to eat and who do you cooperate with to achieve this goal? Since archaeologists study how behaviors change over the course of hundreds to thousands of years, they can answer these questions with a unique perspective. Hopefully, the insights gained through archaeology will help modern groups make informed decisions about long-term problems. Currently Matthew is studying how and why people formed communities that cooperated for protection and food production 1,000 to 500 years ago in what is today Sonora, Mexico.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Marielle Smith is a Ph.D. in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. She is interested in developing management techniques that achieve a balance between biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service provision, and sustainable development in human land-use systems in the Amazon rainforest. She feels that an interdisciplinary approach is increasingly important in tackling global change issues and aims to use both ecological and social science tools to develop and assess forest conservation initiatives. Marielle’s professional life has been split between science communication and ecological research (in places as far flung as Alaska, Mauritius, Costa Rica and England), but until now she has never managed to combine the two, so she is excited about communicating her own research at Biosphere 2.