A Graduate Scholarship in Arid Lands Studies was established in 1985 by the faculty of the Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona, in honor of Dr. William G. McGinnies, our founder. The intent of the McGinnies Graduate Scholarship is to provide additional support to graduate students whose dissertation research concerns physical and biological processes in the world's arid and semiarid lands. The annual scholarship award varies by year, but is typically around $2500. The winner will also give the annual McGinnies lecture to the SNRE community.
For more information on McGinnies and his work, see A Tribute to William G. McGinnies and this 1965 AZ Daily Star article.
Application & eligibility
All application materials must be submitted no later than 11:59pm, April 1, 2024. Please register/apply in Scholarship Universe AND ALSO send application materials to the SNRE business office (bizsnre@cals.arizona.edu).
- Applicants must be currently enrolled University of Arizona doctoral students from any program
- The recipient’s eligibility will be confirmed by the Office of Student Financial Aid.
- Filing a FAFSA is recommended but not required.
- Students must be enrolled through fall 2023 or later.
Award is made on the basis of materials submitted by applicants, which (1) indicates their achievements and future as scholars, and (2) demonstrates significant contribution of ongoing research to understanding environmental processes and informing management of arid and semiarid lands.
Applicants should apply through Scholarship Universe as well as submit the application materials listed below by the deadline. For tips on how to get connected to this and other scholarships, please use the CALES How-To-Apply Guide.
Applications should consist of (1) a letter of application of no more than 1000 words describing the student's research interests, their achievements to-date, and a concise description of their dissertation research and its broader relevance; (2) a curriculum vitae; and (3) two letters of recommendation (including one from the major advisor). It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that letters are received before the application deadline.
See list of previous recipients below, with their dissertation topics, subsequent careers, and current whereabouts.
| Name & Position | Institution | Year won & Department | Title/Subject of Dissertation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonia Delphin-Perez Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2021 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Land-use planning as a tool to promote sustainable development |
| Matt Roby Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2020 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
How changes in the supply and demand of water on a warming planet impact ecosystem productivity, the source of food and fiber in drylands |
| Xian Wang Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2019 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Advancing our understanding of dryland carbon uptake using novel remote sensing techniques |
| Amy Hudson Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2018 School of Natural Resources and the Environment/Laboratory of Tree Ring Research |
Winds above as seen by plants below: the jet stream as a framework for dryland vegetation variability |
| Joshua Scholl Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2018 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Why do some organisms produce morphologically different offspring at the same time? |
| Erik Andersen Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2017 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Effects of Plant Invasions on Birds Breeding in Desert Grasslands |
| Martha Gebhardt Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2017 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Linking Imaging Spectroscopy and Microbial Biogeochemistry to Understand the Causes and Consequences of Shrub Encroachment |
| Mallory Barnes Ph.D. Candidate | University of Arizona | Year Won: 2016 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Drought in semi-arid ecosystems impacts carbon uptake and vegetation productivity across spatial and temporcal scales. |
| Chris Guiterman Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2015 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Fire, land-use, and forest resilience in the US Southwest: Dendrochronology and applied historical ecology. |
| Erin Zylstra Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2014 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Population dynamics of amphibians in desert mountain canyons. |
| Zack Guido Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2013 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Informing Climate Adaptation: Climate Impacts on Glacial Systems and the Role of Information Brokering in Climate Services. |
| Daniel Griffin Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2012 Department of Geography |
Dissertation: North American monsoon paleoclimatology from tree rings. |
| Nick McKay Ph.D. Candidate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2011 Department of Geosciences |
Dissertation: A multidisciplinary approach to Late Quaternary paleoclimatology on interannual to orbital timescales. |
| Henry Adams Ph.D. Candidate (May 2011) |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2010 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Global change and drought-induced tree mortality: temperature sensitivity, mechanism, and ecohydological implications. |
| Toby Ault Post-Doctoral Fellow |
National Center for Atmospheric Research | Year Won: 2009 Department of Geosciences |
Dissertation: The continuum of drought in western North America. |
| Jeremy L. Weiss Ph.D. Candidate (May 2011) |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2009 Department of Geosciences |
Dissertation: Spatiotemporal Measures of Exposure and Sensitivity to Climatic Variability and Change: The Cases of Modern Sea Level Rise and Southwestern U.S. Bioclima |
| Deanna Grimstead Ph.D. Candidate (Dec. 2011) |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2008 Department of Anthropology |
Dissertation: Population Aggregation, Biodeterioration, and Abrupt Climate Change: A Case Study of Human Extensification in Northwestern New Mexico. |
| Katharine Gerst Research Associate |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2007 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: The Influence of Biogeography and Mating System on the Ecology of Desert Annual Plants |
| Dawn Browning Research Physical Scientist |
USDA-ARS, Las Cruces | Year Won: 2007 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Woody plant dynamics in a Sonoran Desert ecosystem across scales: Remote sensing and historic field perspectives |
| Adrian Munguia Vega Ph.D. Student |
University of Arizona | Year Won: 2006 School of Natural Resources and the Environment | Dissertation: Habitat fragmentation in the Baja California Peninsula and its effects on the genetic structure of four endemic vertebrates with contrasting dispersal behaviour. |
| Kimberly A. Franklin Conservation Research Scientist |
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum | Year Won: 2005 Insect Science Interdisciplinary Program |
Dissertation: The consequences of buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) development for biodiversity in the southern Sonoran Desert. |
| Charles A. Price Assistant Professor |
School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia | Year Won: 2005 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Scaling the diversity of botanical form and function. |
| Jessica M. Cable Research Scientist |
Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska | Year Won: 2004 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Precipitation Effects on Soil Carbon Cycling in the Sonoran Desert. |
| Camille Holmgren Ph.D. Student |
The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ | Year Won: 2003 Department of Geosciences Desert Botanical Laboratory |
Dissertation: Discovering the Late Quaternary vegetation and climatic history of the Southwestern U.S.-Mexico Borderlands from fossil rodent middens. |
| Nathan B. English Adjunct Faculty |
School of Earth & Environmental Science, James Cook University, Townesville, Australia | Year Won: 2003 Department of Geosciences |
Dissertation: Physiological basis of isotopic variation in giant saguaro: Are responses to climate recorded in spines? |
| David Patrick Brown Assistant Professor |
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University | Year Won: 2002 Geography and Regional Development |
Dissertation: Analyzing the nature and causes of winter season precipitation variability within the Southwest United States. |
| Erika Geiger Supervisory Biologist |
Canyonlands Research Station U.S. Geological Survey | Year Won: 2002 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: The influence of fire and nonnative grasses on native grassland communities. |
| Andrea Litt Assistant Professor |
Department of Ecology, Montana State University | Year Won: 2001 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Interactions of fire and lovegrass invasion and the concomitant effects on small mammals and invertebrates using a long-term manipulative field experiment at Fort Huachuca Military Reservation |
| Timothy Shanahan Assistant Professor |
University of Texas | Year Won: 2001 Department of Geosciences |
Dissertation: Reconstructing a long-term, high-resolution record of aridity and dust production in the West African Sahel and the Sahara from lacustrine sediments from Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana |
| Kevin Hultine Post Doctoral Research Associate |
The University of Utah, Department of Biology | Year Won: 2000 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: The interaction between the hydrology of riparian ecosystems and the distribution and function of plant root systems |
| Tamara Wilson Geographer |
U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park | Year Won: 2000 Geography and Regional Development |
Dissertation: The use of packrat midden analysis in the reconstruction of vegetation history from central Baja, California |
| Juliann Eve Aukema Conservation Biologist |
Aukema Conservation Science | Year Won: 1999 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: The dispersal and spatial patterns of the parasitic desert mistletoe and their relationship with their host trees and the birds that disperse their seeds. |
| Donald A. Falk Professor |
The University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources and the Environment | Year Won: 1998 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Forest Ecology |
| Keirith Snyder Plant Physiologist |
USDA-ARS, Jornada Experimental Range | Year Won: 1997 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Mechanisms that determine woody species distribution in semi-arid riparian areas and root allocation patterns of different functional types |
| Elise Pendall Assistant Professor |
The University of Wyoming Department of Botany | Year Won: 1996 Geosciences |
Dissertation: Effects of climatic seasonality on the stable isotopic composition of plant cellulose and potential for paleoclimatic reconstruction |
| Maria J. Clauss | Department of Genetics and Evolution Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology |
Year Won: 1995 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Evolution of life history strategies of plants |
| Jake F. Weltzin Executive Director |
USA-National Phenology Network | Year Won: 1994 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Ecology of semi-desert grasslands and savannahs |
| Sharon Helen Blendenbender Invasive Species Coordinator |
USDA Forest Service, Coronado National Forest | Year Won: 1993 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Germination requirements of Arizona native perennial grasses and their establishment in existing stands of Eragrostis lehmanniana Nees |
| Franco Biondi Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Geography |
University of Nevada, Reno Department of Geography | Year Won: 1992 School of Natural Resources and the Environment |
Dissertation: Spatial and temporal reconstruction of twentieth century growth trends in a naturally seeded pine forest |
| Peter K. Van de Water Assistant Professor |
Department of Earth & Environmental Science, California State University, Fresno | Year Won: 1991 Geosciences |
Dissertation: Morphological changes in Pinus flexilis needles across the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary due to atmospheric carbon dioxide increases |
| Catherine E. Pake Biology Instructor |
Portland Community College Biology and Environmental Science Rock Creek Campus |
Year Won: 1990 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Sonoran Desert annual plants: Empirical tests of models of coexistence and persistence in a temporally variable environment |
| Marissa Pantastico Biology and Microbiology Faculty |
Los Angeles Trade Technical College | Year Won: 1989 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Competition in desert winter annuals: Effects of spatial and temporal variation |
| Gordon A. Fox Assistant Professor |
The University of South Florida Department of Biology & Department of Environmental Science & Policy |
Year Won: 1988 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Adaptation, history, and development in the evolution of a desert annual life history |
| Michael J. Sanderson Professor |
University of Arizona, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Year Won: 1988 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Patterns of homoplasy in North American Astragalus |
| Judith Xiutzal Becerra Associate Research Professor |
The University of Arizona, Ecology & Evolutionary Behavior | Year Won: 1987 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: Adaptations to ecological interaction |
| James R. Malusa Research Specialist, Principal |
The University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources and the Environment | Year Won: 1986 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
Dissertation: The phylogeny and water relations of pinyon in relation to the vicariance biogeography of the Southwest |
| Julio L. Betancourt Senior Scientist; Professor |
U.S. Geological Survey; Dept. of Geosciences, School of Geography & Regional Development, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, School of Natural Resources & Environment, University of Arizona | Year Won: 1985 Geosciences |
Dissertation: Tucson's Santa Cruz River and the arroyo legacy |
William G McGinnies (right) with Julio Betancourt, first winner of the McGinnies Graduate Scholarship, 1985
Julio Betancourt (left) selected as an AGU Fellow receiving an award from the Tom Grove President of the American Geophysical Union, 2019.