Research Ecologist (postdoc)
USDA-Agricultural Research Service
I am a Research Ecologist (post-doc) for the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Southwest Watershed Research Center, in Tucson. I work closely with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service to assess the current distributions and health of plant communities on rangelands across the West. I completed my PhD and a Geographic Information Science Graduate Certificate at the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment. My graduate research assessed the many factors at play that lead to the establishment and encroachment of velvet mesquite in Sonoran Desert grasslands, which culminated in a remote sensing-based model and a prototypic interactive mapping tool for the proactive management of velvet mesquite.