Tara Pike, sustainability coordinator and manager of the UNLV Recycling Program, is an expert on waste reduction, recycling, and resource management on campus.

Since joining UNLV in the 1990s as an environmental studies undergraduate, Pike has championed green living. She founded the Rebel Recycling Program in 1995, and has led efforts that increase environmental awareness at UNLV and throughout Southern Nevada. Since 2003, Pike's program has recycled more than 5,600 tons of material on campus.

Pike also serves as Vice President of Campus Race to Zero Waste, a partnership with the National Wildlife Federation that teaches universities how to reduce or eliminate waste.

UNLV Lee Business School professor Nicholas Irwin studies microeconomics, particularly environmental and urban economics with a focus on the implications of these areas on real estate markets, human decision making, and demographics. His expertise is used to provide insight into proposed environmental or urban policies in Nevada and the economic implications surrounding them.

Irwin has conducted research on issues including the implications of COVID-19 on the housing market and water use, homeowners' response to new information about environmental hazards, the role of neighbors in homeowner decision making, and the implications of wildfire and other risks on housing demand and supply.

Irwin's work has been published in leading environmental and urban journals, including the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Energy Policy, Land Economics, and the Journal of Real Estate Research.

UNLV School of Public Health professor Erika Marquez is an expert on health disparities, children's health, improving diversity in health communication, and finding ways to creatively dispense health information to underserved populations. She also serves as co-director of Health Equity Research and Training for the Nevada Minority Health & Equity Coalition — a partnership of academic, civic, private and community organizations that aim to address health disparities and inequities in Nevada by building capacity, informing policy, and conducting research — which is housed within the School of Public Health.

Marquez has devoted the last decade of her career to working on local issues focused on housing quality, housing-related health concerns, and housing equity. Her research uses data and research to inform programs, policies, and practices, as well as to advance the field of public health.

Specifically, she has examined the impact of lead in children, as well as used surveillance data to inform public health decisions and engage community partners to improve housing conditions and increase blood lead testing in young children. More recently, Marquez has led #OneCommunity, a COVID-19 prevention and vaccine awareness outreach campaign that aims to educate and reach at-risk populations (including the Hispanic, Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander, LGBTQ, African American, Deaf and Blind, and Native American communities) via the development of culturally responsive content and media, translated materials, billboards, digital advertising, and more.

Prior to her current roles, Marquez was a research associate at UNLV's Nevada Institute for Children's Research and Policy.

Frank van Breukelen is an associate professor of biological sciences in the UNLV School of Life Sciences. 

Since joining UNLV in 2002, van Breukelen has explored biochemical and molecular approaches to understand what allows animals to survive in extreme environments. Most notably, van Breukelen and his team have tackled projects involving small rodent hibernation and adaptation of the pupfish within the Death Valley region.

In addition to research, van Breukelen teaching courses on subjects including mammalian, cellular, and environmental physiology; biochemical adaptations; and bioenergetics.

Life sciences professor Jef Jaeger specializes in conservation biology, ecology, population biology, and phylogeography. In addition to research, his passions include teaching biological sciences to undergraduate students who are pursuing degrees outside of sciences.

Since 1991, Jaeger has published over 25 publications highlighting desert wildlife — including bighorn sheep, amphibians, and more — and climate change indicators in the American West. Jaegar's publications have been recognized by publications including Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution and ScienceDaily.

Jaeger has received numerous fellowships and awards throughout his career at UNLV, including the College of Sciences' Outstanding Dissertation for 2006 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Network For Environmental Management Studies (NEMS) Fellowship.

UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law professor Bret Birdsong is a recognized expert in public lands management, federal natural resources, water rights, food system, and conservation law. 

Prior to joining UNLV, Birdsong served the United States Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, as a trial attorney focusing on public land and natural resources litigation from 1994 to 2000. As an Ian Axford Fellow in Public Policy in 1998, he studied New Zealand's specialized Environment Court and served as a visiting fellow in the office of New Zealand's Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

More recently, he served in the Obama administration as deputy solicitor for Land Resources at the U.S. Department of the Interior, providing counsel to the Secretary of the Interior regarding the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and other agencies regarding important conservation and land management policy initiatives.

Birdsong is a co-author of Natural Resources Law: A Place-Based Book of Problems and Cases, and edits chapters on Federal Reserved Water Rights and Interstate Water Allocation in the Treatise Waters and Water Rights.