Advancing Equitable Biology Research: Supporting Colombian Undergraduates through Programming and Phylogenetic Comparative Methods in R
PI: Cristian Román-Palacios (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Katherine Perez (Universidad del Valle, Colombia), Natalia Ramírez (Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia)
Funding: National Geographic Society, $99,423
Project Dates: January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2026
Website: datadiversitylab.github.io/macrodata (English translation here)
Summary:
MacroData is a project created to strengthen, in a decentralized manner, programming and data analysis skills in evolutionary biology. Its focus is on supporting and connecting students and researchers in Colombia, with a teaching phylogenetic comparative methods through R.
Biotic and Abiotic Drivers of the Prevalence of the Gulf Coast Tick and an Associated Vector Borne Disease in Arizona
PI: Sabrina McNew (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Cristian Román-Palacios, Paulina Maldonado-Ruiz (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Henrey Deese (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Geological Survey, $438,945
Project Dates: August 15, 2024 – August 14, 2028
Website: www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/67a3f19bd34e63325c2b748a
Summary:
This project aims to study the Gulf Coast tick’s presence in Arizona in partnership with the Tucson Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy. Over the course of three years, the research team will capture birds and inspect them for ticks and take key health measurements. Researchers will then use these measurements to determine how the tick and its associated bacteria affect bird health. This will allow researchers to combine these data with a rigorous census of the tick across southeast Arizona to create maps of where this tick is found and identify the most important habitat features that affect its distribution and abundance. The results of this project will help determine whether changing climate, habitat loss, or dispersal by birds is the most likely cause behind the emergence of Gulf Coast ticks in Arizona.
CAMBIUM NRT-HDR: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation through Biodiversity Informatics Education and Mentoring
PI: Sabrina McNew (The University of Arizona)
Co-PI: Kacey Ernts (The University of Arizona)
Key Personnel: Cristian Román-Palacios (The University of Arizona) and others
Funding: National Science Foundation, $2,999,549
Project Dates: April 1, 2024 – August 31, 2029
Website: cambium.arizona.edu
Summary:
CAMBIUM is a U.S. NSF-funded Research Traineeship Program aimed to prepare the next generation of scientists to leverage big biodiversity and social data to tackle and solve global challenges. CAMBIUM will create a thriving, sustainable model for training scientists to work across disciplines and acquire the skills to use bioinformatics and big data integration to predict outcomes and inform decision-making. Training students in these skills will develop a workforce capable of managing large-scale databases linking state-of-the-art biodiversity data with other high-quality datasets to address challenges in a One Health framework, resulting in significant societal impacts.
Collaborative Research: USA National Phenology Network 2.0: Reimagining How We Experience the Signs of the Seasons
PI: Theresa Crimmins (The University of Arizona)
Co-PIs: Rob Guralnick (Florida Museum of Natural History)
Key Personnel: Ann Shivers-McNair, Alison Meadows (The University of Arizona)
Funding: National Science Foundation / Infrastructure for Biological Research Program, $1,217,623
Project Dates: 2024-2028
Website: usanpn.org/nn/NewApp
Publications:
“Attending to Relations of Participation in an Information-as-Potentiality Approach,” Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting 2025 Symposium, 2025
“Collaborative Redesign of Nature’s Notebook,” Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, 2026 (poster)
Summary:
The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) is a national initiative that focuses on collecting and organizing phenological data to help support long-term tracking of seasonal events in plants and animals and better understand changes over time. In this project, the USA-NPN is undertaking a major overhaul of its mobile application, Nature’s Notebook, through a multi-step process led by the Mobile App Working Group (MAWG), a co-design collective composed of science graduate students and faculty, scientists working outside of academia, medical doctors and other community partners. The intended outcome of this effort is a larger pool of observations contributed from a greater diversity of locations and by a more diverse group of observers that will, in turn, yield a more robust dataset better suited for use in scientific discovery and documenting global change.
The Small Mammals of the Paisley and Connley Caves: Disentangling Drivers of Diversity in Pleistocene Extinction Survivors
PI: Rebecca Terry (Oregon State University
Co-PIs: Meaghan Wetherell (The University of Arizona
Funding: Oregon State University, National Science Foundation, $119,531
Project Dates: June 1, 2023 – May 31, 2026
Website: github.com/MeaghanWetherell/Chewaucan
Summary:
Researchers are looking at small mammal bones (rodents, rabbits, etc.) from two large archeology sites in Oregon that record animal bones for the last 18,000 years. They are comparing that to modern diversity and climate change to see how small mammal populations have reacted and changed over time. The University of Arizona component of the grant provides for an educational video game that highlights this research and other research conducted in that area of Oregon over the last 50 years: Finding Lake Chewaucan, available to wishlist on Steam. The video game launches in spring 2026. Wetherell been creating the game with a number of College of Information Science undergraduate game design students for the past three years. The game is open source, so may download the current version and use it in their own projects.
Preserving Research Data from Forest Service Experimental Areas in Arizona, Phase II
PI: Bryan Heidorn (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Forest Service, $140,000
Project Dates: June 12, 2023 – May 12, 2028
Summary:
The University of Arizona is collaborating with the National Forest System to preserve and make accessible decades of historical research data from four Forest Service Experimental Areas in Flagstaff, Arizona. These areas, which include Fort Valley, Long Valley, Sierra Ancha and Beaver Creek, house valuable data in both paper and digital formats. The project aims to digitize and publish this data through the FS Research Data Archive, ensuring it remains accessible and usable for future scientific, educational and land management purposes. Additionally, the project will create digital versions of paper records for ongoing use while preserving the originals for long-term stewardship by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The collaboration will involve a data librarian working closely with the Forest Service’s Research Data Services and chief data officer to guide the project, which has the potential to impact data management across the entire National Forest System and beyond. InfoSci graduate and undergraduate students have worked on this project. Some of the students have traveled to the research areas to collect documents for reorganization, preservation and digitization.
Proof of Concept for a Forest Service-wide Data Catalog
PI: Bryan Heidorn (The University of Arizona)
Staff Research Lead: JosephAveril Cate, Jr. (The University of Arizona)
Funding: U.S. Forest Service, $400,000
Project Dates: September 4, 2023 – November 3, 2026
Summary:
The project is national in scope, covering data from districts, forests, regions and the entire National Forest System, particularly wildfire data. The project involves a data librarian working with USFS Research Data Services and the chief data officer to integrate data management across multiple programs. It aims to establish a proof of concept that impacts a wide range of Forest Service data creators and users, with guidance from the USDA Axon Data Governance platform to ensure broad and effective data use. The project aims to create a comprehensive data inventory for the Forest Service to meet Evidence Act requirements, including developing a searchable data catalog with metadata. It targets datasets related to the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and seeks to integrate the selected data catalog platform with the USDA's enterprise data catalog and governance platform, while also marketing published datasets through federal platforms like data.gov and GeoPlatform.
