Aly Bean

Postdoctoral Research Scientist 

Washington State University, Pullman, WA 

208-874-2489 

Alycia.bean@wsu.edu

Background

Aly is a native to Colorado but has called the Palouse home since 2002. Moving to the area to accept an AmeriCorps position in environmental education, Aly’s love of the region and passion for the outdoors helped guide her professional path. Aly has an undergraduate degree is in Political Science, a Master’s of Environmental Science and Natural Resources and a Doctorate in Geography. Her research focused on legal and political aspects of Idaho’s changing climate on water resources and agricultural systems. She helped develop NASA Langley’s Climate Adaptation Plan, has been a National Science Foundation Fellow, and recipient of awards from NASA Goddard, the US Geological Survey, Idaho’s EPSCoR program, and the UI College of Graduate Studies for innovative research.

Skills and Expertise

Environmental Sustainability, Conservation, Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation and Adaptation, Human Dimensions of Climate Change, Agriculture, Agroecology, Water Resources, Climate Impact Assessments and Plans, Decision Support Tools, Interdisciplinary Research, Data Analysis, Systems Thinking, Ecosystem Services

Broad Research Objectives

Work with the LTAR Human Dimensions Working Group (HDWG) on the Baseline Data Collection effort to develop primary data for a variety of social well-being indicators as well as general indicators on social perceptions of resilience, tradeoffs, and awareness related to agroecosystem functions. Research objectives are to advance data collection, management, stewardship, and analyses to complete these current HDWG efforts, thereby providing LTAR baseline data and analyses.  

Current Research Projects

Postdoctoral researcher examining relationships between humans and climate change impacts on agroecoregions and agroecosystems across the Long-term Agroecosystem Research Network. Collaboration with LTAR working groups in Human Dimensions, Baseline Data Collection Initiative, Indicators and Data Management. 

Selected Publications: 

Meredith, G., Bean, A.R., Bentley Brymer, A., Friedrichsen, C., Hurst, Z.M. 2021. Integrating human dimensions within the LTAR network to achieve agroecological system transformation. Rangelands. RALA-00293. 1-9.  

Bean, Alycia R., et al. “Regional Frameworks for the USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (2021): 312. 

Bean, Alycia R. “Idaho Dairy Industry’s Vulnerability to Long-Term Drought” [ESRI web mapping application] by abean_ui_uidaho. August 23, 2019. https://uidaho.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=545cd13f571b4ca087a3667951f9da44 (originally created Jan 22, 2018). 

Klos, P. Z., Abatzoglou, J. T., Bean, A., Blades, J., Clark, M. A., Dodd, M., … & Jansen, V. S. (2015). “Indicators of climate change in Idaho: an assessment framework for coupling biophysical change and social perception”. Weather, Climate, and Society, 7(3), 238-254. 

Russell DeYoung and Alycia Bean. NASA Technical Report. “Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies for NASA Langley Research Center”. Unclassified. September 2012.