Meet Our People

I am an international student from El Salvador and a senior in the Environmental Science Program, in which I have been recognized as an outstanding undergraduate student. My research interests focus on finding sustainable and valuable uses for urban and agricultural waste. I have worked as a researcher in the biggest sugar company in El Salvador CASSA, leading a brand-new industrial composting plant. In 2014, I developed a community composting initiative in El Salvador, for which I was recognized by former President Clinton after placing second in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) Commitments Challenge competition.

I am an Environmental Technician who has graduated from the Scholarships for Education and Economic Development (SEED) Program, financed by USAID and administrated by Georgetown University. I also work as an ambassador for the Central American Youth Ambassadors (CAYA) and Fulbright Programs, and I am the president of the United Nations Chapter at the University of Idaho. I draw upon my experience in working to model nutrient inputs and outputs and the quantification of dairy waste in the area of Upper Snake River Basin, within the INFEWS project.

Mario works helping Idaho producers to manage and reduce the environmental impact of their livestock and farming operations while increasing their productivity, sustainability and workforce education.

I grew up in Rupert and Jerome, Idaho, and decided to come to the University of Idaho last fall. I joined the honors program and studied biological engineering with a focus in environmental aspects for the first year of my undergraduate. I spent my summer in Moscow, Russia on a cultural exchange and reconnected with my love for music. I am now studying piano performance, with a minor in mathematics, and I play the violin in the orchestra for fun. I am very fascinated with hydrology, and the processes behind water purification and the biological components of these systems, and have found that music and math are a great contrast to my scientific interests.

The future climate profile of the Western United States includes projections of more variable precipitation events, decreases in winter snowpack, and rising temperatures. Paired with projections of rising populations and higher demands for water, these changes will require the reinvention of policies and strategies for managing water to help ensure a sustainable future resource supply. My research explores the role of water institutions within Idaho’s Magic Valley in implementing more collaborative water management initiatives to substitute outdated practices and increase the adaptive capacity of the region.

Dr. David Griffith works on community and stakeholder engagement for the Center for Resilient Communities at the University of Idaho. He received his PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho in 2015, with specializations in plant-fungal symbiosis and social-ecological systems science. His subsequent research has focused on community-based observing, stakeholder engagement at the nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (FEWS), and the use of indicators to anticipate socio-environmental instability and emergence regimes. Dr. Griffith is currently working to adapt and extend the Community-Based Observing Networks and Systems (CBONS) methodology from Arctic coastal observing to rangelands monitoring in the Intermountain West.

Andy is President’s Professor of Community & Landscape Resilience and the Director of the University of Idaho Center for Resilient Communities (CRC). Kliskey is also the Idaho EPSCoR Director (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research). He is a social-ecological systems scientist and behavioral geographer with training, teaching and research experience in landscape ecology, behavioral and perceptual geography, geographic information systems (GIS), planning, policy analysis, and surveying.

Andy has spent the last 20 years working in Maori communities in New Zealand, rural communities in western Canada, Inupiat communities in northwestern Alaska, Denai’na communities in southcentral Alaska, and rural communities in Idaho examining community and landscape resilience. His teaching and research is interdisciplinary in nature and directed at integrated methodologies in social-ecological systems that combines stakeholder-engagement, scenario analysis, and geospatial modeling. Kliskey is project lead on two NSF Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (INFEWS) awards.

Richard Lammers is a Research Assistant Professor in the Earth Systems Research Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. Richard was one of the founding members of the Water Systems Analysis Group and has been Co-Director since 2008. He received a B.Sc. (Geography and Economics) in 1988, an M.Sc. in 1990 and a Ph.D. in 1998 (Physical Geography) from the University of Toronto, Department of Geography. He has been a researcher in Earth Systems Research Center since 1996.

The focus of Richard's research is on global and regional-scale hydrometeorological modeling and analysis with an emphasis on human interactions within the hydrological cycle. His research interests include: understanding the convergence of human and biogeophysical datasets, modeling, and analysis; inter-basin hydrological transfers; tracking glacier water through land surface hydrology; coupling agent-based and physically-based models; high latitude hydrological cycle; uncertainty of future change scenarios; spatial datasets and geoprocessing; river networks; and techniques of Internet-based data serving and analysis. His most recent work involves integrating hydrology with power generation systems, economic models and water rights to understand the resilience and vulnerability of water, land, food and energy systems.

Richard has also served as Science Advisor to Ice Worlds. This documentary was uniquely designed for planetariums by Evans & Sutherland Creative Media in association with the University of New Hampshire, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and the National Science Foundation.

Research: Economic Geography, Urban Geography, Urban Planning, Environmental Planning, GIS, Spatial Analysis and Modeling

As urban footprints expand to meet population growth estimates, resource conflicts appear inevitable. These conflicts have solutions, albeit ones that require complex, integrated perspectives. My past experience as a secondary English teacher paired with my studies as a graduate student in landscape architecture and urban planning allow me to meaningfully interact with the study area and its regional stakeholders. I am part of the scenario team which identifies and analyzes the study area’s past and present resource flows and conflicts to better understand future trajectories of the landscape. The rural-urban interface, including land allocation and resource reuse, is central to my master’s project research.

Audrey is currently a research assistant for the CRC pursuing a Master's in Environmental Science. She's worked on a variety of geospatial projects such as mapping invasive species habitat for the Alaska USGS as a NASA consultant. For the University of Idaho, Audrey has studied soil phosphorus migration in Lake Fernan in Coeur d'Alene ID, and bark beetle outbreak in the Uidaho Arboretum. Born and raised in Meridian Idaho, she is well acquainted with the culture and industry in southern Idaho. Through CRC’s INFEWS project, she hopes she can bring her personal experience along with academic knowledge to bring sustainable environmental solutions to maintain the resilience of the Magic Valley. Her focus is mapping nutrient systems in the area.

Alexander Prusevich is a Research Scientist in the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire. His primary research focus is on volcanology, tectonics, hydrology, and remote sensing. For the INFEWs project, Alex works with the UNH team on the Water Balance Model (WBM).

I am a graduate student pursuing my Master's in Public Administration. As a lifelong resident of Moscow, I am fascinated with the process of administering local goods and service, especially in rural communities. I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Idaho in Political Science with a minor in Philosophy. As a research assistant on the INFEWS project, I work to analyze and understand the complex social interaction within the system of the Magic Valley through both conventional research and stakeholder outreach.

Jamie is a landscape ecologist focused on developing actionable conservation science and management-relevant environmental planning. His specialty is applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to complex landscapes, with a specific focus on socio-ecological interactions. He continually works to translate disparate data sources into a common geospatial framework for landscape-level analyses, in both aquatic and terrestrial systems, to facilitate visualization and communication. Jamie is particularly interested in using alternative landscape futures and scenario analysis to better plan for natural resources, both wild and urban, in the future.

Grace B. Villamor was born in Bay, Laguna, Philippines. She is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Resilient Communities, University of Idaho, USA. Prior to that she was a Senior Researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Germany for the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate and Adapted Land use (WASCAL) program and a technical consultant at the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF)-Vietnam. Her research interest is in agent-based land-use models and decision-making of land managers affecting ecosystem services. She was also involved in various biodiversity-related research projects in Southeast Asia with the ASEAN Biodiversity Center and ICRAF. She obtained her doctoral degree (Geography) at University of Bonn, Germany in 2012 and master’s degree (Forest Policy and Economics) in the Technical University in Dresden, Germany, in 2003.

My primary interest is in transdisciplinary research from a systems perspective, with an emphasis on the interaction between humans and the biophysical environment. I am currently working on the perceptions of people within the Magic Valley of Idaho of energy, food, water, and by-products in the system. I want to answer the question how perceptions inform behaviors and decisions that impact the environment.

I am a senior in the Landscape Architecture undergraduate program. I am researching how potential land use changes in the Magic Valley can be modeled using stakeholder driven scenarios and alternative futures. I’m excited to be a part of an interdisciplinary group that allows me to experience landscape planning on a large scale.