Bulletin Supplement (Spring 2006) |
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Jennifer Kucera will be leaving SWRC on 18 May to accept a post-doc position working for
Donna King is a new student employee with SWRC. She already has a B.A. in Public Administration and is currently working on her B.S. in
Bob Lamb just joined the staff in
The Tombstone Epitaph wrote a nice article about Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed last month. (Click here to see the article)
Ross Bryant has taken a permanent position as a Geospatial Analyst with Statistical Research Inc. here in
As many of you know, Ken Renard was hospitalized with a serious health condition last month. Ken is doing very well and is back at home "acting normal" again. Virginia and Ken thank everyone for their love, support and prayers.
Thanks to the SWRC Scientist Jennifer Kucera, SWRC offered two activities at the Tucson Children's Earth Day Festival -- 1) "Soil appreciation" through painting with soils and 2) "Soils are Alive" ... viewing arthropods through a microscope. People were interested before we could even get set up and the booth was busy throughout the entire day! Kids and adults were interested in both activities! The experience reminded us how important it is to get kids excited about science and in natural resources in particular. Jennifer wanted to thank Annie for creating the poster, Gloria for loaning the microscopes, Kevin for volunteering his time on a Saturday, Cheryl, Charmaine, and Chandra for donating materials, Bill for donating one of the soils used to make paints, and Craig Rasmussen for donating the other soils, and her husband and daughter for their assistance!
Participants in the UA Extension Master Watershed Steward Program toured the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed on April 25th. Kim McReynolds, Susan Pater, and Mary Nichols provided an overview of SWRC research and runoff measurement.
The
Mary Nichols will be presenting an overview of sediment transport research including the use of RFID systems to monitor coarse particle displacement at the upcoming 16th Annual Jornada Symposium in
Mary Nichols has implemented a new project to quantify the impacts of small rock check dams on sediment retention, soil moisture distribution, and vegetation. This research is being conducted in cooperation with Kim McReynolds (UA Extension) in an effort to provide new information for designing rangeland soil and water conservation projects. UA graduate student Chad Reed (RNR) and Guillermo Martinez (ABE) will also be contributing to this project. A 95 acre pasture in the
Bill Emmerich will be attending the ASA-CSSA-SSSA annual meeting to present isotope separation of organic and inorganic soil carbon fluxes in Nov 06.
David Goodrich will participate executive committee presentations to be made to the External Advisory Board meeting of the NSF SAHRA Science and
In the last newsletter, we shared the sad news of SWRC Scientist Dean Martens' passing. Dean's work will be honored with a Clark Distinguished Lectureship and Poster Session at Annual Meeting of Soil Science Society of America (SSSA). The speakers are:
Warren Dick,
Jeannie McLain,
Dan Olk, National Soil Tilth Lab,
Don Suarez, Salinity Lab,
This will be followed by publication of manuscripts as a special section in the SSSA Journal. It is a wonderful tribute to Dean. Please contact Jeannie McLain (JMcLain@uswcl.ars.ag.gov ) or Mitch McClaran (mcclaran@u.arizona.edu ) for more information.
Ken Renard made an effort this year to identify the most-cited historic publications at SWRC. Cheryl Fusco, Mary White and Jason Wong scanned these publications and made them all available on the SWRC website at http://www.tucson.ars.ag.gov/unit/Publications/Search.html These include the RUSLE Handbook (SWRC Reference No.: 717) and the Water Harvesting Handbook (SWRC Reference No.: 378). Check it out.
AWARDS
Congratulations to SWRC Soil Scientist Bill Emmerich. In his recent research position review, he was evaluated by his peers and recommended for promotion.
In February 2006, Jason Wong garnered a commendation from the ARS webmasters for helping to improve the ARS web presence over the last several months. After a review of over 350 websites in the Agency, the