Sydney Shaw
Research Specialist, Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research 

B.S. in Environmental and Ocean Sciences, University of San Diego

B.A. in History, Texas A&M University

Sydney is a Research Specialist with the CAP-LTER project. She completed her second bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Ocean Sciences in 2024 after completing her tour of duty as an active duty naval officer where she continues to serve as a reservist. Her undergraduate research focused on the comparison of constructed and naturally-occurring tidal marshes in San Diego, California as a habitat for local fish species. With CAP-LTER, her work focuses on the impacts of urbanization on terrestrial ecosystems, particularly soil biology and biogeochemistry.

Sydney.Shaw@asu.edu

Jocelyn Mendoza
B.S. in Environmental Science

Jocelyn is a Research Assistant in the NCUIRE program, with an interest in soil carbon dynamics. She is developing independent research exploring how plant litter decomposition, a major input of carbon into soils, will be impacted by altered precipitation patterns that are occurring in the Sonoran Desert.

Bridget Turner
B.S. in Environmental Science

Bridget is a NCEHSS Scholar studying the soil food web in ASU's Carbon Sink Forest. The Carbon Sink Forest was planted at ASU's West Campus to test whether urban forestry as a carbon sink is effective and practical in a desert city using native Sonoran Desert mesquite trees. Bridget's research complements the existing measurements of carbon pools and fluxes by building an understanding of the soil food web that processes that carbon, from the microbial flora to the micro- and meso-fauna, with a main focus on the microarthropods.

Erin Walsh
B.S. in Environmental Science

Erin is a research aide contributing to the project investigating plant-soil interactions during ecological succession following glacial retreat in Antarctica. She is focusing right now on microscopy skills, contributing to enumeration of microbial and invertebrate organisms extracted from the soil.

Daniela Figueroa
B.S. in Environmental Science

Daniela was a NCEHSS Scholar studying plant-soil linkages in Antarctica. Her research project explored how the physical traits and nutrient content of moss influence soil communities living beneath it. As the dominant form of vegetation on the Antarctic Peninsula, moss provides important habitat for soil biota who participate in key ecological processes. Daniela's research looked at how characteristics within and across moss taxa relate to the abundance of different groups of soil fauna.

Tamara Kratochwil
B.A. in Environmental Science

Tamara began in the lab as an NCEHSS Scholar studying the soil food web in ASU's Carbon Sink Forest. Tamara's research complemented the existing measurements of carbon pools and fluxes by building an understanding of the soil food web that processes that carbon. Upon completion of this project, Tamara became a research aide applying these skills to understand soil food webs and biogeochemistry at glacial succession zones in Antarctica.

Samantha Lohmann
B.S. in Environmental Science

Samantha was a research assistant with the Antarctic research project exploring plant-soil interactions during ecological succession after glacial retreat. Sam was responsible for biological and chemical analyses on plant and soil samples collected during our recent field campaigns in Antarctica. Ultimately, the results of her work will demonstrate how plants alter soil chemistry and biological communities as primary succession progresses.

Jared Rusnak
B.S. in Environmental Science

Jared was a Fellow with the NCUIRE program, studying the nutrient dynamics of moss decomposition in maritime Antarctica. Moss is the dominant primary producer over much of the terrestrial Antarctic ecosystem - the "forest canopy" so to speak. Yet, we don't yet know much about their ecological role in, for example, biogeochemical cycles. Jared explored that by understanding how moss nutrient content varies across soil resource availability, and how that influences their rate of decomposition and nutrient recycling.

Krishna Patel
M.S. in Biological Data Science

Krishna's applied project for her M.S. focuses on the long-term patterns of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in Phoenix, AZ and its impacts on soil and plant nutrients. She is using the CAP LTER's DesFert long-term dataset to explore spatial and temporal differences in N deposition that result from human activities, and how it relates to mineral forms of plant-available nutrients in the soil.

Hannah Pham
B.S. in Environmental Science
M.S. in Environment and Resource Management

Hannah was the research technician with our "living experiment" in water conservation for turf grass. In a collaboration between ASU's Sustainability Practices Office, the Bureau of Reclamations, and the City of Phoenix, a water-absorbing polymer was applied to an ASU athletic field and a City of Phoenix public park to test its efficacy for reducing irrigation needs in a desert environment. Hannah was responsible for the regular soil sample collection and analysis of soil physical properties, particularly those related to water retention.

Kevin Prehm
B.S. in Environmental Science

Kevin investigated the impacts of disturbance on desert soil microbial communities for his capstone independent research project. While a lot of research has explored the impact of disturbances on the microbial communities living in cryptobiotic soil biocrusts, we know relatively little about the response of free-living desert soil fungi to human disturbances. Kevin specifically explored how mountain bike trails, a significant source of soil compaction and erosion in the desert, influence fungal abundance relative to bacteria.

Matt Seelig
M.S. in Biological Data Science

Matt's applied project for his M.S. focused on the impacts of human land use decisions on soil physicochemical properties in the urbanizing Sonoran Desert. He used machine learning techniques and data modeling on CAP LTER's ESCA long-term dataset to explore temporal patterns of human impacts over the period of 2000-2015.

Han Zhang
B.S. in Environmental Science

Han completed his capstone research experience by assisting with microscopy-based protocols in the lab, including identification and enumeration of moss and nematodes from both the Sonoran Desert and Antarctica.