ENViSion at University of Arizona EarthWeek

ENViSion is our annual research symposium, where graduate and undergraduate students showcase their latest work during oral and poster presentations as part of the University of Arizona's EarthWeek celebration.

EarthWeek is a School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES) week-long celebration of the incredible research across its seven units. Each year, ENViSion is planned and run by graduate students in the Department of Environmental Sciences with financial support from our engaged alumni, friends and corporate sponsors.

Coming soon! ENViSion 2025

There are no upcoming events listed.

Our students are leading the way in environmental science, below you will find the winners of the ENViSion 2024 student presentations:

Graduate orals:

1st place: Taylor Thornton (MS)

2nd place: Neeraja Setlur (PhD)

3rd place: Jhon Del Aguila Pasquel (PhD)

Honorable Mentions:

Brooke Byars (PhD) and Mery Touceda Suarez (PhD)

Graduate posters:

1st place: Andréa Martinez (MS)

2nd place: Anu Sethuraman (PhD), Ghiwa Makke (PhD), and Santiago Valencia (PhD)

3rd place: Ma'in Alghzawi (PhD)

Honorable mentions:

Kendra Wissinger (MS), Garrett Hagen (MS), Melissa Jacquez (MS), and Susan D Perez (PhD)

Undergraduate oral:

Jacob Galloway

Undergraduate posters:

1st place: Kielah Dyer

2nd place: Renata Martin

3rd place: Caroline Shults

Honorable mention:

Alexia Vance

Graduate orals

1st Place: Russell Noon - "Impacts of microplastic contamination on soil systems and resulting plastivore population dynamics through environmental selection"

2nd Place (3-way tie):

Taylor McCoy - "Evaluation of growth rate effects in Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and butter lettuce (Lactuca satival) from mealworm substitution in feed in ras"

Susan D. Perez - "Conditional Stability Constants for Five Synthetically Derived Glycolipids"

Tomasz Wlodarczyk - "Unconventional approaches to explore metal accumulating plant species"

Honorable mentions:

Willliam Borkan and Jason Windingstad

Graduate posters

1st Place: Xenia De Gracia - "Characterization of mine tailings from legacy mines"

2nd Place: Benjamin Karls - "Parametrization Fate and Transport of Energetics on Training Ranges"

3rd Place: Neera Setlur - "In-situ Sequestration of PFAS from Contaminated Groundwater using Injectable High Affinity Cationic Hydrophobic Polymers"

Honorable mentions:

Andréa Martinez, Christian Ayala-Ortiz, and Taylor Thornton

Undergraduate Presentations

1st Place - Nandita Parekh - "Getting the Dirt on Urban Garden Contamination: Environmental Monitoring in the University of Arizona Community Garden"

2nd Place - Ana Soto Velázquez - "Can the integrity of field soils be sustained for greenhouse studies?"

3rd Place - Alexia Vance - "Bathroom contamination due to 3 different hand-drying methods"

Over 35 ENVS students created lightning talks* on their research and projects for the virtual University of Arizona Earth Week 2021 (still in COVID-19).

*Lightning talks are short presentations (less than five minutes) that provide a concise overview about a topic.

ENViSion Winning Lightning Talks

All participating students pre-recorded lightning talks about their research and/or project using a few key PowerPoint slides. ENVS faculty reviewed the presentations and awarded cash prizes for the top three presentations for graduate and undergraduates.

Graduate orals

1st Place: Kendra Bonsey - "Gut microbiome and arsenic bioavailability and transformation"

2nd Place: William Borkan - "Uranium transport through porous media"

3rd Place (3-way tie):

Asama El Ouni - "In situ biosequestration for the remediation of uranium"

Chance Muscarella - "Enzymes as useful indicators of nutrient mineralization"

Matthew Bigler - "Contaminant transport and pore-scale fluid flow" ***no video available

Undergraduate orals

1st Place: Favianna Cubello - "Transport of Composition B"

2nd Place: Benjamin Karls - "IMX-104 transport in overland flow in rill"

3rd Place: Tyler Rodshagen - "Future environmental conditions on Streptomyces griseus" ***no video available

Art and Environmental Science

The ENViSion Planning Committee wanted to highlight the creative side of ENVS students. They have many talents. The committee proposed the question:

What do you find inspiring about the environment?

Participating students submitted art pieces ranging from photographs to poetry and from watercolor to bookmarks. Very diverse styles. Winning art was selected by a student and staff panel. The winners are, Maria Touceda Suarez (ENVS doctoral student) and Matthew Bigler (ENVS doctoral student). Their art was transformed into magnets and stickers provided to students participating in 2021 Earth Week.

STUDENT STATEMENTS & ART

Over 40 of our students created lightning talks on their research and projects for the virtual University of Arizona Earth Week 2020 (due to COVID-19)

Lightning talks are very short presentations (<5 minutes) to give a concise overview of scientific research.

Winning Lightning Talks

During a live virtual event with over 100 attendees across the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, three environmental science students (Richelle Thomas, Chelsea Mendoza and Ariel Leger) placed in the top 4 out of fifteen lightning talks.

Richelle Thomas - "Mining Contamination & Diné Medicinal Plants"

Chelsea Mendoza - "Testing Field Kits for Citizen Science"

Ariel Leger - "Restoring Arizona's Drylands"