From my studies at the Northern Arizona University I have been deeply enriched within the science of forestry, I have recently been employed by a forest ecology lab at the NAU School of Forestry, and this Fall 2022 semester I have been awarded the NAU RISE (Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement) internship which offers funding and support to Native American and underrepresented students at NAU to enhance the research in the diversity of the biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce.
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Over the past 4 years, NAU; School of Forestry, Ecology Lab has partnered with a regional Tribal college; Diné College and Diné College has taken charge of a long-term Navajo Nation forest restoration research project taking place in Tsaile, Arizona. The research project's immediate goals are to study the effects the forest restoration treatments have on Navajo forested lands and the understory. The research conducted has shed new light for me as a future forester and the types of implementations from Western Science that can be utilized within my tribe and for my people. As of recently, this semester, the NAU RISE research program provided me eligible for funding and support to conduct my own research study underneath the same project as the Diné College Ecological forest restoration project. I will be studying the effects of ecological restoration on Pinyon pine cone reproduction on the Navajo Nation. The Pinyon pine tree species offers the Navajo people a type of native food source that many of the Navajo people utilize to this day, pinon pine nuts, and my proposed research will allow an insight on types of management and restoration practices that will provide tribal forest sustainability, pinon cone reproduction and forest health.
What I work for
Collaborations
I work under Peter Z. Fulé, Ph.D. in his Forest Ecology lab in the NAU School of Forestry Building.
I am also working under the RISE program coordinators, Anita Joy Antoninka & Catherine R. Propper, on my Undergraduate Research project.