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 and wildlife habitat.
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.
Eli Nyawunu
Eli is in the DEERS Geological Sciences PhD Program and is a CIElOG Fellow. He is focused on using drones and machine learning to monitor rangeland and agricultural plant communities. Eli is co-advised with Deana Pennington.
Bindu Poudel
Bindu is a candidate in the Biology Masters Program. She is studying spatial scaling of dryland structural diversity patterns.
Angie Gutierrez
Angie is a 2025 ROADS Postbac and will be studying the remote sensing and ecology of dryland plant and biocrust communities.
Grace Lee
Grace is an undergrad in the COURI Program. She is interested in the spatial factors influencing bird and mammal behavior and habitat selection, along with the environmental processes that affect ecosystems at different scales and conservation of such systems.
Karen Stopani
Karen is an undergrad in the COURI Program interested in how biodiversity and species interactions shape ecosystem function. With a background in host–parasite ecology of desert river systems, Karen is now expanding into spatial ecology to study how plant structure, soil microbial communities, and landscape patterns interact to drive ecosystem processes in drylands.
Lab Alumni
Joshua Mead (PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, August 2025) worked on the spatial and thermal ecology of rattlesnakes in the Chihuahuan Desert and will be working in the fall as a lecturer at UTEP.
Kylie Rezendes (MSc in Biological Sciences, May 2025) described the spatiotemporal co-occurrence of felines in the Northern Jaguar Reserve.
Priscilla Castaneda (ROADS Postbac 2024-2025) worked on drylands soil ecology. She will be starting as a masters student at the University of New Mexico in fall 2025.