Program

2026 Symposium

Saturday, September 26 2026
Integrated Learning Center, Room 150, University of Arizona

Presentations

Time	Speaker(s)	Title
8:30 - 9:00	Registration
9:00 - 9:10	Mitch McClaran UA SNRE & SRER	RISE Welcome
9:10 - 9:30	Abe Karam NEON Domain 14	Updates and Opportunities with NEON the National Ecological Observatory Network
9:35 - 9:55	Brett Blum UA AES Director	Updates and Opportunities at the Santa Rita Experimental Range
10:00 - 10:10	Phil Heilman USDA ARS	Updates and Opportunities at the Southwest Watershed Research Center
10:15 - 10:35	Dave Moore UA SNRE	NASA ARID: Adaptation and Response in Drylands Scoping Project
10:40 - 11:00	Laura Condon UA HAS	A National Platform for Groundwater Surface Water Modeling and Exploration
11:05 - 11:25	Sarah McCord USDA ARS	Using the Rangeland Analysis Platform and the Landscape Data Commons to Understand Rangeland Spatiotemporal Dynamics
11:30 - 11:50	Heather Throop ASU SESE	Tracking Litter and Soil Carbon through Space and Time in Long-term Experiments at the SRER
11:55 - 12:10	Poster Introductions	Presenters give a 1-minute advertisement of their poster
12:10 - 1:45	Poster Session Lunch w/ Posters	Provided at the meeting; included in RISE registration
1:50 - 2:10	Amy Ganguli UA SNRE	New World Screwworm Risk in Southwest Rangelands: Ecology, Detection, and System-Level Vulnerability
2:15 - 2:35	Jesse Alston UA SNRE	A Wide-ranging Research Agenda for Beefing up Wildlife Conservation in Southern Arizona
2:40 - 3:00	Mitch McClaran UA SNRE & SRER	124 Year Primer on Vegetation Change
3:10	Poster Awards

Posters

(*=graduate student in poster contest)

Number	Lead Author	Title
1*	Lindsey Bell UA SNRE	Flux Footprint Analysis Reveals Directional Variation in Productivity Within Dryland Sites
2	Alexi Besser ASU SESE	Leaf Litter Decomposition in Drylands: How do Microbes get Water When it Doesn’t Rain?
3*	Cameron Tescher UA SNRE	Characterizing Bird Communities in Areas of Mesquite Encroachment and Removal
4	Savanah Jones ASU	Overlooked Oxalotrophs: Oxalotrophy in Dryland and Marine Ecosystems
5*	Allelua Niyokwizera ASU	Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Stability in the Dryland Detrital Input and Removal Treatment (D-DIRT) Experiment: Evidence from Plant Litter Input Manipulation, Density Fractionation, and Stable Isotope Analysis
6	Juliana Gil-Loaiza UA HAS	Harnessing Microbial Adaptation to Increase Soil-based H₂ Uptake as a Leak Mitigation Solution
7	Isabel Torres ASU	Macroclimate and Microclimate Effects on Litter Decomposition Vary Within and Between North American Drylands
8*	Fehmida Rafi UA SNRE	Interannual Bare Ground Dynamics at SRER Beyond Climate
9	Zexi Shen UA ENVS	Climatic Drivers of Diverse Trends in Terrestrial Water Storage in North American Drylands
10	Sahasra Muccala Hamilton HS	Regionalized Forecasting of AI Data-Center Water Use Under Uncertainty
11	Sarah Koger ASU	Contributions of Biological Soil Crusts to Global Soil Carbon Stocks
12	Joel Biederman USDA ARS	Temporal Decoupling of Evaporation and Transpiration Under Fewer, Larger Rainfall Pulses
13*	Mary Sanchez ASU	Effects of Climate Change on Biocrust Microbial Community Composition and Storage Reserves Simulated by Reciprocal Transplants
14	Nate Pierce USDA ARS	Changes in Functional Cover of Sonoran Desert Rangeland Vegetation in Response to Modified Cool- and Warm-season Precipitation Regimes
15*	Lucas Carter ASU	Investigating Microbial Activity in the Atmosphere with the HERA Platform

RISE Organizing Committee:

Brett Blum, Phil Heilman, Mitch McClaran, Heather Throop (alphabetical)

bcb@arizona.edu
phil.heilman@usda.gov
mcclaran@u.arizona.edu
heather.throop@asu.edu

Acronyms:

AES: Arizona Experiment Station
ARS: Agricultural Research Service
ASU: Arizona State University
ENVS: Dept Environmental Science
HAS: Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences
HS: High School
NEON: National Ecological Observatory Network
SESE: School of Earth and Space Exploration
SNRE: School of Natural Resources and the Environment
SRER: Santa Rita Experimental Range
UA: University of Arizona
USDA: United States Department of Agriculture