Since the late 1980s I’ve been doing research out of the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory. I first started scientific research in the eastern Sierra Nevada in 1976, at Mono Lake, a saline lake just east of Yosemite. These studies began my graduate student research projects at Oregon State University, after which I returned to the Sierra Nevada to continue as a Research Biologist with the University of California at Santa Barbara (with which SNARL is affiliated). Studies of salt lake ecosystems and the ecology and physiology of aquatic invertebrates and algae has been one of the main themes of my research program. Besides work at Mono Lake, other saline lake projects have been done at Owens in California, Abert in Oregon, and Walker in Nevada. In addition to saline lakes I’ve also studied spring ecosystems in the Great Basin. Along with these desert aquatic environments my main research has been in streams of the Sierra Nevada. Stream research has included studies of sediment deposition and effects on benthic invertebrates, establishing a monitoring network to detect the effects of climate change on mountain stream hydrobiology, and investigations of the impacts of a variety of disturbance stressors on stream community ecology including livestock grazing and management, forest use practices, acid mine drainage, introduced invasive species (Trout, New Zealand Mud Snails), roads and erosion, and restoration of degraded habitats. The focus of many of these studies has been to provide a scientific foundation to inform management decisions by state and federal environmental and regulatory agencies.