Successful ecosystem restoration requires an understanding of the ecological processes directing succession. One of the challenges in the semi-arid grasslands of western United States is replacement of native species by invasive annual grasses. Solutions to this problem require identifying and manipulating ecological processes that direct succession to favor desired vegetation....
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal nutrition assistance program in the US aiming at improving health and nutrition among low-income individuals and households. SNAP is a means tested program that provides monthly cash benefits to eligible households and individuals whose assets and net monthly incomes are...
Oxo-hydroxo Group 5 metal clusters are an untapped resource to study and advance aqueous solution processing of metal oxide thin films. The tetramethylammonium (TMA) hexatantalate salt (TMA6[H2Ta6O19]) yields dense Ta2O5 films (~95% of the bulk ß-Ta2O5 density) with atomically smooth surfaces (<4 Å root mean square surface roughness). This same...
Under the label “Supported Employment,” services that promote competitive, integrated employment (CIE) for working-age adult with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been federally funded since the 1980s, alongside other more traditional day habilitation and segregated or sub-minimum wage employment services. However, since the early 2000s, over 30 states have adopted...
The lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) is an important groundfish species in both recreational and commercial fisheries of the Northeastern Pacific. It is a large, fast-growing, generalist predator of invertebrates and fishes. In response to concerns that lingcod may limit populations of rockfishes (Sebastes spp.), I compared the diets of 375 adult...
Public policy narratives and stories are often referenced by the media, politicians, advocacy groups, and across many disciplines in academia. Studies of social and political narratives support the notion narrative matters, but often lack systematic design capable of producing generalizable findings. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has responded to this...
One of the greatest challenges in the West is the sustainable management of limited water resources. In recognition of localized responses to natural resource challenges, there has been considerable work in the area of adaptive capacity and collaborative governance to help understand a community’s capacity to manage change. This study...
River basins provide essential services for both humans and ecosystems. Understanding the connections between ecosystems and society and their function has been at the heart of resilience studies and has become an increasing important endeavor in research and practice. In this dissertation, I define basin resilience as a river basin...
There are many links between exposure to environmental pollution and risks to human health. While advances in the fields of toxicology, exposure science, and environmental chemistry have shown light on many of these links, many more research challenges remain. One major challenge is how to accurately characterize the toxicity of...
With 97% of the world’s freshwater resources stored underground, the connection between groundwater resources to the metrics of space, scale and time common to the geographic study of natural resources has not been extensively investigated by geographers. While nearly 240 transboundary aquifers are mapped across the world, a potential “tragedy”...