Sevilleta REU Mentors

Becky is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico.  As a freshwater phycologist, broad questions that interest Becky include:  (1) What species inhabit the Earth?:  (2) Why are species found where they are?; and (3) How do species respond to environmental and biological stressors?   These questions have driven her research program that utilizes diatoms as model organisms to ask broader questions about microbial biogeography and species responses to stressors.

Brian is a PhD. student at the University of New Mexico. He studies evolutionary and ecological processes that contribute to invasiveness in plants. In his research he is examining genetic diversity and phenotypic plasticity to reveal invasion patterns and advantageous traits of plants in their native and introduced ranges. He mentors students who are interested in plant ecology, invasive plants, and evolutionary ecology. 

Don is a biology professor at the University of New Mexico whose research interests focus on evolutionary molecular biology and comparative biochemistry, fungal genetics, and biochemical adaptations accompanying life in the presence of oxygen.

Jon is a Wildlife Biologist at Sevilleta NWR.  His current refuge programs include exotic invasive plant management, habitat restoration,  waterfowl management, wildlife surveys and monitoring, and  re-introduction of Gunnison’s Prairie Dogs.  

Laura is a PhD. candidate interested in the influence of human mediated disturbances on plant community dynamics and ecosystem processes. The main community drivers she investigates include nitrogen deposition, fire, extreme climate events, and altered precipitation regimes. Her dissertation research is focused in semiarid grass and shrublands of the Sevilleta NWR in central New Mexico. She mentors students who are interested in plant community ecology or the interaction between plants and soil.

Mason is a 6th year PhD candidate at UNM and has been working on the Sevilleta the last two years studying drought impacts on lizard density and behavior. He has spent the last 15 years studying amphibians and lizards in New York, California, New Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama.  His work is very field oriented focused on understanding how communities are assembled and respond to environmental change.  As part of this work Mason has mentored many students in field study design, data collection, and analysis, as well as published four papers with these students.  

Ecosystem physiology and ecology, plant physiological ecology; emphasis on investigating the effects of climate variability, disturbance and/or land use on the exchange of carbon, water and energy between ecosystems and the atmosphere. I am currently measuring whole ecosystem responses to precipitation pulses in desert grass, shrub, and woodland ecosystems using tower based micrometeorological techniques.

I focus on the reproductive biology and evolutionary systematics of arid land vascular plants. Students could work on a wide range of projects utilizing the varied plant communities encountered at the Sevilleta LTER.

 Juliana Medeiros was a PhD. Students at UNM - Dpt. of Biology in 2009, she has since moved on and become a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Kanasa - Lawrence.

My past and present research has focused on the behavior, ecology, and conservation of mammals and birds. Currently, I am studying the social network structure and dynamics of cooperation in male social networks of long-tailed manakins (Chiroxiphia linearis), a unique tropical bird species in which males cooperatively display to attract females.

My expertise is in plant reproductive ecology using field, greenhouse and lab studies. A major emphasis of my work uses paternity analysis to elucidate male reproductive success. I teach students to use sound, interesting experimental designs, strong statistical analysis, and how to put their work in a larger context.