Match tier Confirmed
Presence Current · Arkansas
Last published 2025
Sources OpenAlex · ORCID
Refreshed 2026-08-20

Kusum Naithani

Affiliation confirmed via AI analysis of OpenAlex, ORCID, and web sources.

Federal Grant PI

Associate Professor

Also affiliated: University of Wyoming (2007–2018); Pennsylvania State University (2012–2013)

Faculty Researcher

13 h-index 72 pubs 1,000 cited

  • Soil
  • Ecosystem
  • Trees
  • Plant Leaves
  • Biodiversity
  • Fires
  • Soil Microbiology
  • Spatial Analysis
  • Wetlands
  • Bayes Theorem
  • Humans
  • Pennsylvania
  • Water
  • Spatio-Temporal Analysis
  • Bacteria

Biography and Research Information

OverviewAI-generated summary

Kusum Naithani's research focuses on ecological and environmental science, with a particular emphasis on soil microbiology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. She holds an h-index of 13 with 72 publications and 991 citations. Naithani has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on two National Science Foundation (NSF) grants totaling $878,466. These grants support research and education initiatives focused on the assessment and sustainable management of ecosystem services within food, energy, and water systems, including REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) sites.

Her recent publications explore diverse areas within environmental science. These include the utilization of NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) data for open environmental science, the evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions in the food and beverage sector, and the development of data-wrangling tools for microbial ecology. Naithani also investigates the recovery of soil microbial diversity and functions following disturbance in tropical montane forests, the impact of grazing on insect biodiversity in pastures, and the use of bee morphology to understand foraging ranges and conservation needs. She actively collaborates with researchers at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, including Megan Reavis, Ayanna St. Rose, Neelendra K. Joshi, and Andy Pereira.

Metrics

  • h-index: 13
  • Publications: 72
  • Citations: 1,000

Selected Publications

  • CU-ESIIL/Innovation-Summit-2025: 1.1.0 (2026)
    Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) DOI OpenAlex
  • CU-ESIIL/Innovation-Summit-2025: 1.1.0 (2026)
    Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) DOI OpenAlex
  • Modeling rice leaf area index and canopy height in the US Mid‐South region (2025)
    Agrosystems Geosciences & Environment 1 citation DOI OpenAlex
  • Unraveling the Influence of Structural Complexity, Environmental, and Geographic Factors on Multi‐Trophic Biodiversity in Forested Landscapes (2025)
    Ecology and Evolution 3 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • Combined Landscape Complexity is A Better Indicator of Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Forested Ecosystems than Physical or Biological Complexity Alone (2024)
    SSRN Electronic Journal DOI OpenAlex
  • Intertegular Distance of Wild Bees and its Use in Estimating Proboscis Lengths and Foraging Ranges to Better Understand Bee Conservation Ecology (2024)
    SSRN Electronic Journal 3 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • Sheep grazing influences the abundance, diversity, and community composition of wild bees and other insects in livestock pastures (2024)
    Ecological Indicators 8 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • A Problem with Distance Variables and Alternatives for Their Use (2024)
    Journal of Real Estate Research DOI OpenAlex
  • Effects of measurement methods and growing conditions on phenotypic expression of photosynthesis in seven diverse rice genotypes (2023)
    Frontiers in Plant Science 1 citation DOI OpenAlex
  • People, infrastructure, and data: A pathway to an inclusive and diverse ecological network of networks (2022)
    Ecosphere 9 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • Recovery of soil microbial diversity and functions along a tropical montane forest disturbance gradient (2022)
    Frontiers in Environmental Science 9 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • Building communities of teaching practice and data‐driven open education resources with <scp>NEON</scp> faculty mentoring networks (2022)
    Ecosphere 7 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Mitigation Goals of the Global Food and Beverage Sector (2022)
    Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 20 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • Harnessing the NEON data revolution to advance open environmental science with a diverse and data‐capable community (2021)
    Ecosphere 35 citations DOI OpenAlex
  • From DNA sequences to microbial ecology: Wrangling NEON soil microbe data with the <i>neonMicrobe</i> R package (2021)
    Ecosphere 9 citations DOI OpenAlex

View all publications on OpenAlex →

Federal Grants 2 $878,466 total

NSF PI Mar 2024 - Feb 2027

REU SITE: Assessment and sustainable management of ecosystem services at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems

RSCH EXPER FOR UNDERGRAD SITES, EPSCoR Co-Funding $491,183
NSF Co-PI Mar 2021 - Feb 2025

REU SITE: Assessment and sustainable management of ecosystem at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems

Cross-BIO Activities, RSCH EXPER FOR UNDERGRAD SITES $387,283

Collaboration Network

83 Collaborators 45 Institutions 3 Countries

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