Reclamation and Restoration Ecology Faculty and Research

Research interests: Basic and applied aspects of restoration ecology to restore the functionality of and mitigate impacts to forest and rangeland wildlife habitats following disturbance.

Research interests: water resource economics, resource and environmental economics.

Research interests: spatial and temporal patterns of selection in plant populations using techniques in field ecology, molecular genetics and bioinformatics, adaptation of plant populations to local environments, and the implications of local adaptation for the restoration of native plant communities.

Position: Extension Educator Extension Range Specialist

Research interests: nutrient cycling in natural, disturbed, and agricultural settings from the perspective of landscape and soil organic matter dynamics, interactions among landscapes, plant communities, and land use affect resiliency and degradation-recovery processes as applied to on-the-ground ecological restoration and sustainable management.

Research interests: environmental chemistry watershed land use activities (e.g., energy industry and ag production), sustainability of natural resources (e.g., air quality and water quality).

Research interests: spatial and temporal variability of soil microbial communities, response and recovery of soil microbial communities and their ecosystem functions to various forms of disturbance, influence of land management practices on soil microbial community structure and function, nutrient cycling.

Research interests: rangeland sustainability, including ecological functioning of rangelands, economic values and decision-making, rangeland-dependent communities and families, Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable.

Research interests: reclamation and revegetation of lands disturbed by ecosystem disturbances such as coal, coalbed methane, uranium, phosphorus and gravel mined lands, military bases, and ground and surface water contamination; carbon sequestration, ground and surface water contamination, selenium chemistry in agricultural, mine land and military ecosystems, reclamation and revegetation of disturbed lands, acid deposition impacts, CBM water salinity/sodicity, pesticides and nutrient mobility and fate, forest nutrient cycling processes, sorption of hazardous anions and organics, bioavailability of waste constituents, and use of geographic information systems (GIS) and land evaluation and site assessment (LESA).