Projects

Our project is focused on understanding how communities and regions respond and navigate sea ice change in the Beringia Region of the Arctic.

I am the lead PI of the approximately $3m project with partners at McGill University, Columbia University, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Northern Iowa University. We are funded by NSF NNA.

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. The Arctic research is needed to inform the economy, security and resilience of the Nation, the larger region and the globe. NNA empowers new research partnerships from local to international scales, diversifies the next generation of Arctic researchers, and integrates the co-production of knowledge. This award fulfills part of that aim. NSF NNA Award Numbers: 1928235, 1928202, 1928259, and 1928126.

A recent publication from this project focused on integrating decision sciences and institutional analysis for climate change published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.

ASU co-PIs are Drs. Stephanie Pfirman, Shauna BurnSilver, and Marty Anderies. Our ASU graduate research assistant is Masha Monakhova.

SNOWPACS is a National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)-funded project ($4.9m) on the impact of changes in mountain snowpack on agricultural production and water allocation institutions in the western United States.

Recent publications from this project have focused on issues of drought, climate change, and risk in Central Arizona published in Water Alternatives and on coupled socio-hydrological systems published in Environmental Research Letters.

I am a co-PI and lead the ASU subaward that is focused on institutional analysis of irrigation governance in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada with co-PI Bryan Leonard and Katie Wright is our graduate research assistant.

Dr. Gwen Arnold and I co-lead this project (approximately $750,000) focused on unconventional oil and gas drilling (fracking) in Appalachia. We are examining policy adoption at the state and local levels, individual attitudes, and policy networks.

Dr. Scott Yabiku is the lead PI on this $1.5m Coupled Human Systems NSF Project. I lead the institutional work on community forestry. We examined the extent of mikania micrantha, an invasive species, in Chitwan, Nepal; then we explored perceptions and collective action to manage mikania.

Our team's publications include work in the Global Environmental Change, International Journal of the Commons, Forest Policy and Economics, and Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation.

I have been a scientist on the CAP LTER team since 2007. served as co-PI on the $6m grant from 2016-2021, and co-direct the Phoenix Area Social Survey. Currently, I am on the Executive Committee that provides policy guidance.

My CAP LTER has focused primarily on environmental injustice, land use, and urbanization. Publications include work in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Applied Economics Letters, Ecology and Society, and Ecosphere.