My research dissertation research focuses on collaborative and participatory applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (R/S) technologies to improve communication and use of scientific knowledge for wildfire planning and management. I am also a research associate for the Regional Center for Sustainable Economic Development through Arizona Cooperative Extension, where I conduct research to help identify the most sustainable areas for renewable energy development throughout the state using GIS modeling. And I love bicycles
Topic or title of your dissertation/thesis:
Fire Futures In The Southwest: Using Geospatial Technologies to Bridge The Gap Between Science and Decision-Making [working title]
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.
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.
I do not have a research component but teach 2 classes, PLS 217 and PLS397B in which I discuss sustainable practices in greenhouse agriculture. These include sustainable/biodegradable growing media, use of beneficials to control pests in the greenhouse rather than using chemical pesticides, use of organic teas and compost beds for growing, etc. I have been at the UA since July 1990. I have worked on several research projects and for the last 12 years have been primarily teaching and doing extension/outreach work with a few research projects/affiliations with the UA's Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC), 1951 E. Roger Rd, Tucson, AZ.
Urban forestry and agriculture. Educational outreach, science literacy in the area of plant biodiversity, water conservation and sustainable landscape management.
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
I am interestd in the effects of habitat fragmentation and isolation on avian dispersal, and how to improve current habitat restoration practices within the current agricultural landscape. I am developing genetic markers in yellow-billed cuckoos as a tool to measure current western riparian connectivity.
Topic or title of your dissertation/thesis:
Yellow-billed cuckoo Coccyzus americanus population genetics within a fragmented landscape.
I am primarily interested in landscape ecology in water-limited ecosystems. My research interests include vegetation and soil ecology and how plant-soil dynamics respond to changes in vegetation community composition, climate and land use. My research focuses on the phenomena of woody plant encroachment and desertification in drylands and how these alter landscape-scale ecosystem processes such as organic matter decomposition, redistribution of materials across the landscape by wind and water, and soil formation.
Topic or title of your dissertation/thesis:
My dissertation research encompasses several projects. Primarily, my research focuses on the rates and dynamics of decomposition of herbaceous organic matter in a dryland ecosystem experiencing woody plant encroachment and elucidating the relative importance of UV radation and soil-litter mixing as decomposition drivers. I am also doing research on decomposition of woody detritus, on the formation of woody detritus "litter dams" (which capture sediment and organic matter and may serve as the center for formation of islands of fertility), and on rates of soil formation in a dryland ecosystem.
I was just a child when my parents gave me a book entitled “What can children do to save the world?” and after reading that book I realized that I really wanted to care for and maintain the planet in which we live. When I grew up, the time came when I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life, the answer was easy. I love the environment, but I am not an idealist, I know that human beings need to develop and mature, and I believe in an equilibrium point between industrial development and conservation of our planet. This is my life objective, and in order to achieve this goal I am preparing as best as possible so I became a chemical engineer specialized in chemical and biological processes as well as environmental engineering. During my undergraduate studies I collaborated in the design of processes for energy production from forest biomass, and I designed a battery recycling plant for my capstone project.
I am now currently enrolled in the PhD Environmental Engineering program at the University of Arizona under the supervision of Dr. Reyes Sierra and Dr. James A. Field. My research project consists in the study of the biogeochemical cycle of arsenic in the environment. Arsenic is a naturally occurring highly toxic metalloid listed as the highest priority contaminant on the ATSDR/EPA priority list of hazardous substances at Superfund sites; in fact my project is part of the Superfund Research Program at the University of Arizona. I'm doing a PhD in Environmental Engineering in the U.S., get involved in all activities that I possibly can, attending seminars, conferences, talks and maintaining a good collaboration with my peers. This is my attempt to specialize not only in my research project, but also to expand horizons and to learn of the work of others.
I really think what I explained above is what I need to do if I want to be an outstanding environmental professional in my future work. I would like to work at a University, where I can work in solving problems, in intimate collaboration with the industry, in order to implement real engineering solutions to environmental contamination.
Topic or title of your dissertation/thesis:
The main objective of my research is to study the effect of the microorganisms in the mobilization-immobilization of arsenic in the environment
