WHO WE ARE
Principal Investigator
Dr. Elizabeth La Rue
Liz (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Biological Sciences at UTEP (ealarue@utep.edu). She earned her PhD at Purdue University in 2017. Her current focus is on species distributions and ecosystem structure -function relationships in plant communities.
Graduate Students
Anna Downing
Anna (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the EEB Program. She uses UAVs and remote sensing to study the structural features of wildlife habitat across the desert southwest, including post-wildfire restoration monitoring at Lincoln National Forest.
Bindu Poudel
Bindu is a candidate in the Biology Masters Program. She is studying spatial scaling of dryland structural diversity patterns.
Eli Nyawunu
Eli is in the DEERS Geological Sciences PhD Program. He is focused on using drones and machine learning to investigate landscape patterns of rangeland agricultural structural diversity and soil function. Eli is co-advised with Deana Pennington.
Kylie Rezendes
Kylie is a candidate in the Biology MS Program, co-advised with Brett Seymoure. Her research is focused on the spatiotemporal co-occurrence of felines in the Northern Jaguar Reserve.
Joshua Mead
Josh is a candidate in the EEB PhD Program and works on the spatial and thermal ecology of rattle snakes in the Chihuahuan Desert. Josh is in the lab of UTEP herpetologist Jerry Johnson and is co-advised in our lab.
Postbacs
Priscilla Castaneda
Priscilla is a soil and drylands ecologist working on measuring root structural diversity at the Jornada Experimental Range.