From a young age, Niall Hanan has had a keen interest in agriculture. As a teenager, Hanan’s first exposure to agriculture was as a migrant worker picking grapes in France and oranges and olives in Greece. From this experience, Hanan’s curiosity in agronomy and applied ecology only grew.
“I worked at several land-grant schools before coming to Las Cruces in January 2017, and NMSU is my favorite,” said Hanan, a professor of dryland ecology in New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. “NMSU is small enough for everyone to make an impact, but large enough to have a diversity of interesting colleagues and students, and for our teaching and research to be both diverse and impactful.”
Hanan’s research examines why desert grasslands in the southwestern United States are prone to shrub encroachment and focuses on the ecology and management of drylands and savannas in this region and elsewhere across the globe. His ongoing research projects center on the role of climate variability and human management of grazing; fire and other disturbances on ecosystem dynamics; and remote sensing to measure and model ecosystem dynamics at landscape, regional and global scales.
Hanan also leads the Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research program – a National Science Foundation-supported program examining why desert grasslands in the Southwest are so prone to shrub encroachment.
“I love the landscapes of the desert Southwest and living in the ecosystems that are the focus of my research,” he said.
Hanan serves on the executive board of the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research Network and the mission science teams for two of NASA’s Earth observatories. He is the specialty chief editor of the journal Frontiers in Environmental Sciences-Drylands and an editor of the journal Environmental Research: Ecology.
He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, with research support from the NSF, NASA, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Geographic, Fulbright, Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other institutions.
At NMSU, Hanan teaches a graduate-level course in ecological modeling that builds on his extensive dryland ecology research. In this course, students learn how to mathematically model interactions between populations and communities. The course begins with basic population models, such as those illustrating population growth and interactions between predators and prey. Then, it gradually increases in complexity, allowing students to learn how to model ecological communities in space and time. After this, Hanan teaches how to model spatial interactions in landscapes and animal movements, showing how these movements impact other processes in that landscape.
“I have known Dr. Hanan for seven years, and I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor,” said Julius Anchang, a research assistant professor at NMSU. “He is a world-class scientist who was very instrumental in allowing me to transition from a young and inexperienced Ph.D. graduate to a competent research scientist. On a more personal level, I couldn’t have asked for a better supervisor and colleague.”
A version of this story was originally published in the fall 2024 issue of ACES Magazine. For more stories, visit https://nmsu.news/aces-magazine-fall-2024.
-30-
CUTLINE: Niall Hanan, dryland ecology professor, joined New Mexico State University in 2017. In addition to teaching and performing research, he leads the Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research program. (NMSU photo by Josh Bachman)