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I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Utah. My research focuses on the human dimensions of energy (energy inequality and the relative impacts of efficiency improvement and lifestyles on the environment), the structural drivers and social consequences of global environmental change, and local governments’ social, developmental, and environmental (land-use) policies. I also conduct research on environmental concern and activism, using available data, survey and experimental research designs. My work as a professor span several years of teaching experience in the United States and abroad (Ghana and China). I teach classes in environmental sociology (graduate and undergraduate), globalization, research methods (graduate and undergraduate), and social statistics.

My experience as a first generation Purépecha Xicana who entered US schools as a monolingual Spanish speaker, and grew up in a working-poor household along the San Diego-Tijuana border informs my work as an educator and community engaged scholar. I grew up in a mixed-status family, and know what it is like to navigate poor urban K-12 public schools and elite institutions of higher education. My lived experiences and my experiences as a previous middle school and high school teacher have shaped my research agenda, and have established my commitments to teaching and service in order to improve the access and quality of education for BIYOC and their families because they have often been excluded from the US educational system. In particular, my research focuses on Latinx young people, and especially those who have been racially profiled and academically tracked in schools. As a community-engaged scholar, activist, teacher, facilitator, and community member, I am committed to the intersectionalities of the ideals of educación, familismo and overall community well-being particularly as these pertain to equitable educational opportunities that create pathways to higher education. Institutions of higher education need to revise the way(s) we build sustainable and reciprocal bridges with historically marginalized communities of color—in particular, Latinx immigrants who are undocumented. As a Purépecha Xicana professor, I teach and mentor linguistically and culturally diverse students, including first generation college students with whom I share life experiences and who constantly enlighten my research, teaching and service.My research focuses on the educational experiences of BIPOC. My research has several interconnected strands: 1) Latinx & immigrant students and their family’s navigational strategies in the U.S. educational system; 2) Family-school engagement and community-based research that focus on the ways that marginalized young people and their families transform engagement with schools; 3) Equitable, just and culturally sustaining praxis for preservice and in-service teachers, specifically to support educators who work with minoritized students and families. My research draws from critical social theory, ecological systems theory, a sociocultural view of development, migration scholarship, cultural assets frameworks, Chicana feminist theory, and participatory action research (PAR) approaches.

My research centers around the intersection of ecosystems and climate change. In particular, I strive to understand the future of Earth’s forests in a changing climate. Massive mortality events of many tree species in the last decade prompt concerns that drought, insects, and wildfire may devastate forests in the coming decades. I study how drought, disturbance, wildfire, and climate change affect forest ecosystems, including tree physiology, species interactions, carbon cycling, biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks, and nature-based climate solutions. This research spans a broad array of spatial scales from xylem cells to ecosystems and seeks to gain a better mechanistic understanding of how climate change will affect forests around the world.

Troy Christian Andersen, PhD., MSW, MS, LCSW, Executive Director, W. D. Goodwill Initiatives on Aging and Associate Professor/lecturer in the College of Social Work at the University of Utah. Dr. Andersen is a dementia specialist clinical social worker at the Center for Alzheimer’s Care, Imaging and Research at the University Of Utah School Of Medicine. Dr. Andersen received his PhD in Social Work with an emphasis in developing proactive dementia care services for individuals in the early stages of the disease and other aging related topics. In 2010, Dr. Andersen was selected as a John A. Hartford Doctoral Fellow in Geriatric Social Work, a two year fellowship with emphasis on developing enhanced research and teaching skills on issues related to older adults. He was awarded the Anna Dresel Award for outstanding graduate student in Gerontology. Mr. Andersen received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Utah, a Master’s degree in Social Work from Brigham Young University, a Master’s degree in Gerontology from the University of Utah, and a PhD in Social Work at the University of Utah. For the last ten years, Dr. Andersen has worked for the University Of Utah School of Medicine’s Center for Alzheimer’s Care, Imaging and Research. This center operates a multi-disciplinary subspecialty neurology clinic where he works daily with cognitive and movement disorder neurologists, neuropsychologists, nurses and research coordinators providing medical social work services to patients with progressive forms of dementia and their caregivers and families. In his 26 years of clinical experience he has also worked extensively with individuals with chronic mental illness, as well as in crisis intervention, trauma and grief issues.

Professor RonNell Andersen Jones is an Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and the Lee E. Teitelbaum Endowed Chair and professor of law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.

A former newspaper reporter and editor, Jones is a First Amendment scholar who teaches, researches, and writes on legal issues affecting the press and on the intersection between media and the courts, with a particular emphasis on the United States Supreme Court. Her scholarship addresses issues of press access and transparency and the role of the press as a check on government. She is also a widely cited national expert on reporter’s privilege and newsgathering rights and a regular speaker on emerging areas of social media law. Her scholarly work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including Northwestern Law Review, Michigan Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and the Harvard Law Review Forum. She is also a regular public commentator on press freedom issues. Her op-eds have been published in several major news outlets, including CNN and The New York Times, and her research has been quoted in Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other national publications.

Jones graduated first in her law school class and clerked for the Honorable William A. Fletcher on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the United States Supreme Court. Prior to entering academia, she was an attorney in the Issues & Appeals section of Jones Day, where her work focused on Supreme Court litigation and included major constitutional cases.

An award-winning teacher, Jones has been recognized for her classroom innovations and personal mentoring. Before joining the faculty at the University of Utah, Jones was professor of law and associate dean of Academic Affairs and Research at Brigham Young University, where she was twice named Professor of the Year. Before that, she was a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the University of Arizona, where she team-taught an annual course about the United States Supreme Court with Justice O’Connor.

Having grown up in a U.S. Military family, I have lived in and assimilated the customs and languages of France, Japan, and many U.S. states.I attended nine grade schools and three high schools before attending the Massachusetts Institute of Techonology in Aeronauatical Engineering, and earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economic Theory with High Honors from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.After military service, including service in Thailand, my business career has included stints with Fortune 500 firms, mid-size manufacturing firms, international management consulting, and four technology and medical start-ups.I now have turned a lingering desire for service into reality by entering the University of Utah Economics Ph.D. program which, after several years of immersion, I consider one of the most important in the world , and to the world, due to its breadth and depth in both scholarship and students.This great opportunity has strengthened my lifelong interest in macroeconomics and given me a newly developed passion for statistics expressed through econometrics, specifically the statistics of time series.So now, if someone asks me what I am, I say I am a macroeconometrician interested in both the historical and empirical role of energy consumption in economic development and growth.I have also discovered that I am passionate about truth in both Economics teaching and research, and I look forward to a productive, and long, career in both.

Ramón Barthelemy is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah and a fellow of the American Physical Society. Previous to his faculty position Ramón was a Fulbright Scholar in Finland, a Science Policy Fellow in the U.S. Department of Education and a private sector consultant. His work focuses on the lives, educational experiences, and career paths of marginalized students in physics and STEM in addition to a new research focus on quantum mechanics education. His work has been recognized with over $5M in National Science Foundation funding, including a collaboration the Utah ADVANCE. Ramón was the 2020 recipient of the Fulbright Finland Alumni Award, the 2021 recipient of the AAPT Doc Brown Futures award, the 2022 WEPAN Research award recipient, the Out to Innovate 2023 LGBTQ+ Educator of the Year, and the 2023 APS 5 Sigma Award for service to the physics community.

Matthew Basso is an Associate Professor in Gender Studies and History. His research interests include the theory and history of masculinity, labor and working-class history, the history of old age, the history of race and ethnicity, the relationship of the military to society, U.S. Western history, the history of Pacific settler societies and transnational history. His work appears in traditional books and articles, and in community-focused projects like the construction of digital archives, the development of oral history projects, and the production of K-12 curriculum materials. He is the author of Meet Joe Copper: Masculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front, winner of the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award and the American Historical Association’s Pacific Coast Branch Book Award. He’s also the co-author of a K-12 textbook entitled We Shall Remain: A Native History of Utah and America. We Shall Remain is part of a larger initiative, the Utah Indian Curriculum Project (UICP), which also includes the Utah American Indian Digital Archive, a 50,000-page digital archive. UICP won the Western History Association’s Autry Public History Prize, the American Association of State and Local History’s Award of Merit, and National Council on Public History’s Project of the Year-Honorable Mention. He has worked the Smithsonian Institution, Utah Humanities, and museums across the state to illuminate the history of work in Utah and is currently assisting the National Park Service to amplify their coverage of the World War II home front.

Mallory Bateman is the Director of Demographic Research and State Data Center Coordinator at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Ms. Bateman has authored research on a range of topics including community research on Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, generations, fertility, transportation, and commuting. She is an expert in Census Bureau data, products, and programs. With this expertise combined with a background in research and public involvement, Ms. Bateman provides presentations, training, and technical assistance for diverse public, private, and media audiences.

Ms. Bateman serves on the national State Data Center Steering Committee and the American Community Survey Data Users Group Steering Committee. Ms. Bateman chaired the 2020 Census Technical Advisory Committee at the Gardner Institute, which monitors the activities and processes that require local participation for the 2020 Census. She was also a member of the Utah State Complete Count Committee.

Ms. Bateman earned her B.A. in Urban Planning from the University of Utah and an M.Sc. in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics.

Our long, successful, and continuing story of migration across the globe attests to the extraordinary adaptability of humans. Part of our success lies in cultural adaptations. Conforming to conventional wisdom, group learning, and developing and giving attention to markers of group identity are ways we confront the challenges of the social and ecological environment. To understand this process I conduct ethnographic fieldwork and build mathematical and statistical models. I collect data among the people of the Kingdom of Tonga and also in the Tonga diaspora. My objective is to explore explanations of the cultural variation I see in Tonga, among the diaspora, and across other similar cases.

Professor Tabitha M. Benney, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Division of Public Affairs and Affiliated Faculty in the School of Environment, Society, and Sustainability, and the International Studies Program. She is also the Director of the Utah Radon Lab and Associate Director at the Utah Energy and Power Innovation Center (U-EPIC) at the University of Utah. Dr. Benney is also a Research Fellow for the Earth Research Governance Network and serves on the Executive Council of the Energy Futures Research Engine. She received her BSFS (2001) and MA in International Affairs (2007) from Georgetown University and her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2013).

Dr. Benney’s research has been published in The Review of International Political Economy, Science of the Total Environment, Energy Policy, Environmental Research, Atmosphere, The Routledge Handbook on Ethics, The World Financial Review, Vehicles, and Wiley’s Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change -among others. Her books include, Making Environmental Markets Work: The Varieties of Capitalism in Emerging Economies (Routledge Press, 2015) and Agency in Earth System Governance – coedited with Michele. Betsill and Andrea Gerlak (Cambridge, 2020). In addition, she has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants including, the International Studies Association (ISA) Catalytic Research Workshop Grant, the Interdisciplinary Research Pilot Program (IRPP) Grant, the Louis G. Lancaster’s International Relations Award, the Betty Glad Award, a CSBS Fellowship, and the Distinguished Teaching Award (University of Utah).

Christy joined the Museum staff in 1998 and has been managing the invertebrate collections with the help of volunteers and interns ever since.

Moving from 19th century technologies, she shepherded the collection from outdated housing to archival storage, and moved the collections’ data into widely available databases. She orchestrated the collections move into the Museum’s new home at the Rio Tinto Center, and continues to help it grow as NHMU accepts new accessions from researcher partners.

Christy has been an officer of the Entomological Collections Network from 2013–2023.

I explore sedimentology, geochemistry, and environmental change to advance understanding of landscape evolution over geologic to human timescales. I use field observations, remote sensing, and a wide range of lab-based analytical techniques (geochemistry and microscopy) to characterize and interpret records of change. I also work to facilitate interdisciplinary research and practice to address critical issues of global change and sustainable solutions.

The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.” – Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the BaskervillesThis Holmesian principle of unusual clues and detective work applies perfectly to unusual organisms and biology. The weirdest lifeforms can trigger Eureka! moments in biology by forcing our brains to consider novel concepts. This is why the Brazelton lab studies extremophilic microbes: weird archaea and bacteria inspire us to consider unusual ideas about ecology and evolution.One research focus of the lab is the study of serpentinite-hosted ecosystems. These environments host a set of extreme environmental conditions created by a geochemical process known as serpentinization, which releases hydrogen gas, methane, and other simple organic compounds that are attractive food and energy sources for microbes. Serpentinization has been occurring on Earth ever since it became cool enough to have liquid water, and it is also expected to occur on other planets, such as Mars. Therefore, the lessons we learn by studying the weird archaea and bacteria associated with serpentinization are likely to help us understand the origin, distribution, and evolution of life in the solar system.We take highly interdisciplinary, collaborative approaches to investigate these broad questions, and our lab uses a variety of tools that couple metagenomic techniques with biogeochemistry measurements in the field and traditional cultivation-based techniques in the laboratory. Our field sites currently include the Lost City hydrothermal field in the Atlantic Ocean, the Tablelands Ophiolite in Newfoundland, the Ligurian alkaline springs of Italy, and The Coast Range Ophiolite Microbial Observatory in California. All of these projects are conducted as partnerships with excellent, interdisciplinary teams of collaborators.