Kalpana Kukreja
Kalpana's Ph.D. work focuses on quantifying metabolites in soils using targeted and untargeted metabolomic analyses, particularly the role of organic acids in phosphorus acquisition in drylands.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Talveer Singh
Talveer's Ph.D. work focuses on the belowground plant physiological components of carbon cycling and carbon budgets within our dryland critical zone network of sites.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kristina Young
Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, July 2021
Dissertation link

Kristina's Ph.D. work focused on soil nutrient flux in biocrusts on the Colorado Plateau. She also explored applying biogeochemical approaches to improving dryland restoration.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Jane K. Martinez
Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, May 2023
Dissertation link

Jane's Ph.D. project focused on soil enzyme activities in Arctic tundra ecosystems. She collected samples from the Barrow, Alaska area and investigated the microsites within the soil in which enzymes are operating as well as working on some proteomic analysis to work towards identifying the enzymes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Catherine Cort
Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, December 2023
Dissertation link

Cat's Ph.D. work focused on our fungal loop project where she took a core role in implementing our tracer studies of C and N translocation in biocrust-plant-fungal system of dryland soils. She is also studied fungal genetics and is worked to expand our knowledge of the type of fungi that are ecologically important in drylands
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Grace Crain
M.S. in Biology, August 2018)
Thesis link

Grace's master's project focused on the role of phosphorus in biocrust-dominated soils. She studied fractions of phosphorus and used radiolabel to track the incorporation of phosphorus into soils from the Jornada Experimental Range. She also contributed to several parts of the fungal loop project, especially in a collaborative study of the natural abundance isotope ratios of cyanobacterial filaments.
 
 

Alejandro Lara
M.S. in Environmental Science, July 2020
Thesis link

Alex's master's project focused on developing automated CO2 chambers that are using to explore partitioning of CO2 fluxes from soils at a site on the Jornada Experimental Range.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Viridiana Orona
M.S. in Environmental Science, May 2023
Thesis link

Viri's master's work focused on quantifying spatial variation in CO2 in dryland soils at our critical zone sites.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Briana Salcido
M.S. in Environmental Science, May 2023
Thesis link

Briana's M.S. work focuses on temporal CO2 soil efflux dynamics in response to rainfall and irrigation events at our critical zone sites.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Lindsey Dacey

Thesis link
M.S. in Environmental Science, May 2024 Lindsey's M.S. work focused on understanding plant water availability within our dryland critical zone network of sites.