Meet the Faculty
One of the greatest opportunities in Environmental Science is to collaborate with professors who are translating their research and faith into solutions for the world's environmental challenges. Whatever your interests and level of experience, we are always looking for passionate and committed students. If you want to do mentored research, reach out to a faculty member today!
Sam St. Clair
researches how plant-environment interactions affect plant community development and ecosystem stability. Major research themes in his lab include disturbance and invasion ecology, plant-animal interactions with a focus on herbivory and pollination biology, plant-plant interactions (facilitation and competition), plant-soil feedbacks, and global change biology.
Lab Website
Ben Abbott
is the newest member of the Environmental Science team. He researches how human activity affects the water and nutrient cycles that sustain all life on Earth. His current projects investigate water chemistry in river networks undergoing permafrost degradation in Alaska, nutrient pollution in agricultural and urban landscapes around the world, and interactions among people, disturbance, and pollution in the Intermountain West.
Lab Website
Loreen Allphin
researches plant ecology and conservation genetics. She leads projects on rare plants and their genetics in western North America, specifically focusing on the systematics of Brassicaceae. She teaches courses in genetics and reproduction in natural populations, ecology, and medicinal botany.
Lab Website
Neil Hansen
addresses water use and conservation in agricultural and natural systems in his research and teaching. His work includes topics such as dryland and limited irrigation agroecosystems and land management for water quality protection. He is the PWS chair and advises the BYU Environmental Science Club.
Lab Website
Zach Aanderud
is a microbial ecologist who researches microorganism responses to temporal change and ecosystem services. His research includes the impacts of human-induced disturbances on aquatic and terrestrial bacterial dormancy, dominance, and species interactions; and, more recently, the use of hyperthermophilic bacteria to digest waste streams prior to methane production.
Lab Website
Erin Jones
is the manager of the Environmental Analytical Laboratory at BYU. She mentors students in advanced environmental instrumentation.
Lab Website
Brigham Daniels
has expertise in environmental law, property law, and natural resources law. Prior to joining the J. Reuben Clark Law School, he taught as an assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center and as a lecturing fellow at Duke Law School. He teaches the Environmental Science core class "Environmental Policies and Laws" and mentors students on a wide variety of environmental and social justice topics.
Lab Website
When any environmental issue is pursued to its origins, it reveals an inescapable truth—that the root cause of the crisis is not to be found in how men interact with nature, but in how they interact with each other—that, to solve the environmental crisis we must solve the problems of poverty, racial injustice and war.
BARRY COMMONER