Julie is an Associate Research Professor in the Environmental Science Department and the Director of the Center for Environmentally Sustainable Mining at the University of Arizona. Her primary research interest focuses on the impact of aridity on soil microbial diversity and the associated relationship between compromised microbial diversity and the sustainability of vegetation in arid ecosystems or in soils compromised by mining activity or anthropogenic disturbance. She studies plant-microbe associations that enhance plant productivity under environmental stress.