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 and is using UAVs and remote sensing to study relationships between mammals and their environments across spatial scales.
Eli Nyawunu
Eli is in the DEERS Geological Sciences PhD Program. He is focused on using machine learning to investigate landscape patterns of agricultural land use patterns on structural diversity and soil function. Eli is co-advised with Deana Pennington.
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 co-advised with Jerry Johnson.
Bindu Poudel
Bindu is a candidate in the Biology Masters Program. She is interested in forest ecology, remote sensing, data science, and climate change.
Kylie Rezendes
Kylie is a candidate in the Biology MS Program. She is co-advised with Brett Seymoure. Her research is focused on spatial-temporal modeling of feline habitat use in the Northern Jaguar Reserve.
NSF RaMP ROADS Postbacs
Priscilla Castaneda
Priscilla is a postbac that is part of the UTEP RaMP ROADS Program. Priscilla is a soil and drylands ecologist working on measuring root structural diversity at the Jornada Experimental Range.