Arid Lands

Jean McLain

Jean
E
McLain
Title: 
Associate Director and Associate Research Scientist, Water Resources Research Center
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Associate Research Scientist, Soil, Water and Environmental Science
Affiliate Faculty, Institute of the Environment
Education: 
Ph.D., Microbial Ecology, Duke University, 2002.
Phone: 
(520) 621-7292
Photo of Jean McLain

With a strong focus on environmental microbiology, Jean has directed numerous research projects focused on establishing the human health and environmental risks of using reclaimed municipal wastewater for irrigation. She has also managed research studies examining potential climate change impacts on microbiological nutrient cycling in Southwestern soils.

Environmental Themes: 

R. Brooks Jeffery

R. Brooks
Jeffery
Title: 
Director, Drachman Institute
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Professor, School of Architecture
Professor, School of Landscape Architecture & Planning Coordinator
Coordinator, Graduate Certificate in Heritage Conservation
Affiliate Faculty, Institute of the Environment
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
MLS,The University of Arizona, 1992.
Phone: 
(520) 621-2991
Photo of R. Brooks Jeffery

R. Brooks Jeffery is the Director of the Drachman Institute, the research-based outreach arm of the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) dedicated to sustainable design and planning. The Drachman Institute acts as a service-learning nexus between community needs and the College’s skills and knowledge in architecture, landscape architecture, and planning with a specific focus on affordable housing, heritage conservation, neighborhood, community & regional planning. He has been a faculty member at the College since 1988 and is also the coordinator of the College's multi-disciplinary graduate certificate program in Heritage Conservation where his teaching, research, and outreach has focused on the preservation of built environments throughout the world. Jeffery has been a principal investigator on numerous grants and contracts from local, regional and national agencies as well as the recipient of awards for his efforts. Among his core disciplinary values is the preservation of the built environment as part of a comprehensive conservation ethic and that the most sustainable buildings are those that already exist.

Leslie Gunatilaka

Leslie
Gunatilaka
Title: 
Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Director, Natural Products Center
Professor, Bio5 Institute
Member, AZ Cancer Center
Affiliate Faculty, Institute of the Environment
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
PhD, Chemistry, Imperial College, University of London, UK, 1974.
Phone: 
(520) 621-9932
Photo of Leslie Gunatilaka

Natural products science focusing on innovative strategies for the discovery and development of small-molecule natural products for medicine and agriculture, chemistry and biology of arid land plants and symbiotic microorganisms, biodiversity conservation, plant-fungal interactions, medicinal plants, and application of environmentally-friendly techniques for production of plant biomass and plant secondary metabolites with pharmaceutical potential.

Karletta Chief

Karletta
Chief
Title: 
Assistant Professor, Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Sciences
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Affiliate Faculty, Institute of the Environment
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
PhD, Hydrology & Water Resources, University of Arizona, 2007.
Phone: 
(520) 626-5598
Photo of Karletta Chief

Dr. Karletta Chief is an Assistant Professor and Assistant Specialist in the Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. As an assistant professor, the goal of her research is to improve our understanding, tools, and predictions of watershed hydrology, unsaturated flow in arid environments, and how natural and human disturbances affect soil hydrology through the use of physically based methods. Dr. Chief research also focuses on how indigenous communities will be affected by climate change and collaborated in an interdisciplinary group of scientists including hydrologists, system dynamic modelers, and social scientists to determine how hydrological models can be improved to identify and mitigate risks to these vulnerable populations. As an extension specialist, she works to bring relevant science to Native American communities in a culturally sensitive manner by providing hydrology expertise, transferring knowledge, assessing information needs, and developing applied science projects.

Environmental Themes: 

Thomas Wilson

Thomas
B
Wilson
Title: 
Lecturer, Soil, Water and Environmental Science
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Affiliate Faculty, Institute of the Environment
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
Ph.D., Soil Chemistry, The University of Arizona, 2001.
Phone: 
(520) 621-9308
Photo of Thomas Wilson

My research emphasis has been on the impact of invasive species on ecosystems in the SW United States relative to fire frequency and soil chemistry. My current position emphasizes instruction and curriculum development.

Jeffrey Banister

Jeffrey
M
Banister
Title: 
Assistant Research Social Scientist, Southwest Center
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Assistant Editor, School of Geography and Development
Affiliate Faculty, Institute of the Environment
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
Ph.D., Geography, University of Arizona
Phone: 
(520) 621-2484
Photo of Jeffrey Banister

I have a dual position, split between the Southwest Center and School of Geography and Development. As assistant editor of Journal of the Southwest (published by the Southwest Center), I have worked to build upon the university’s tradition of collaborative investigation and publication with Mexican institutions. JSW also publishes widely across the social sciences and humanities, focusing on northwest Mexico and the greater Southwest. My research and teaching interests range widely, from the geographies of institutions and rural development in Mexico and Latin America, to the connections between everyday life and the broader quest to create spaces for social justice and autonomous environmental politics. I am most concerned with state formation and development as socio-spatial and cultural processes that tie together often antagonistic ideas, places, identities, peoples, and things. During the pre-neoliberal era, Mexican statecraft remained focused on stabilizing meaning and practice around the uneven power dynamics of development and its radical reworkings of space. Following austerity and market liberalization, this role has waned, somewhat. But it is also being reconstituted in ways that simultaneously reinforce and demolish longstanding relationships between the state and countryside. Understanding the changing nature of this connection, and its implications for everyday life and livelihood, drives my research.

Susannah Dickinson

Susannah
Dickinson
Title: 
Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
MArch, Architecture, Cal Poly 1998
Photo of Susannah Dickinson

I'm involved in research and projects that stem from a background in digital processes, parametric modeling, BIM, and digital fabrication. This technological background is coupled with a belief that it is our responsibility, as architects, to be concerned with the entire built and natural environment. The interest is in whether technology, in the form of computational design and fabrication processes, can lead to sustainable and ecologically responsive systems with the aid of biomimetics; leading to new architectural and urban paradigms for sustainable environments, especially in arid regions.

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Chester
F
Phillips
Degree Program: 
phd
Primary Department/Unit: 

Short Bio:

Chester (Chet) Phillips is a Ph.D. student in the interdisciplinary Arid Lands Resource Sciences program. He currently works as Graduate Assistant for Sustainability for the Associated Students of the University of Arizona. He has previously taught English and been a research assistant to Dr. Sharon Megdal at the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), where he worked to put together the Arizona-Israeli-Palestinian Water Management and Policy Workshop. Chet has also previously worked for the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution and, in 2004, as the Arizona state lead for Environmentalists for Kerry. Past awards include the Morris K. Udall Scholarship for Environmental Leadership and the Beth Rogers Graduate Fellowship in Nonfiction Writing. He holds a B.S. in Environmental Science, a B.A. in Creative Writing, and an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona.

Research Interests:

Chet’s research interests lie at the intersection of conservation biology, environmental policy, and collaborative problem solving. In particular, his work focuses on protection of the lower San Pedro Watershed and natural resource planning at the community level for conservation and adaptation to resource scarcity and uncertainty.

Topic or title of your dissertation/thesis: 

Collaborative Conservation Planning in the Lower San Pedro Watershed

Expected Graduation Date: 
December, 2013

Wendell Ela

Wendell
P
Ela
Title: 
Professor, Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Additional Titles and Departments: 
Professor, Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Professor, Division of Community, Environment and Policy, College of Public Health
Related Departments, Schools or Colleges and/or Program(s): 
Education: 
PhD, Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 1998
Phone: 
(520) 626-9323

Research and interests include: strategies for benign disposal of arsenic wastes from anthrogenic activities, technologies for sustainable inland desalination and salt management, purification of trace contaminant impaired water, renewable energy integration into water treatment and distribution processes, water and wastewater treatment operations, aqueous particle-particle interactions and interfacial chemistry, geochemistry of natural aqueous systems, instrumentation and process technology development, hazardous waste site remediation.
 

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Lily
A
House-Peters
Photo of Lily A House-Peters
Degree Program: 
phd
Primary Department/Unit: 
Other Departments or Unit Affiliations: 

My research interests focus on the complex interactions and feedbacks between social, technological, and ecological systems, which effectively influence water supply, demand, wastewater disposal and reuse, and inequities in the distribution of water resources. I am interested in better understanding how human decision-making, across and between multiple social, political, economic, and legal hierarchies, directly and indirectly affects the urban hydrological cycle at differing temporal scales.

Topic or title of your dissertation/thesis: 

My dissertation research examines the impact of large-scale, centralized water infrastructure investments on water security, adaptive management capacity, and vulnerability to climate variability, including drought and flood, in urban Australia.

Advisor(s): 
Expected Graduation Date: 
May, 2014

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