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For the Indigenous Resilience Center (IRes), elevating Indigenous knowledge and leadership is central to its mission. Part of the University of Arizona in Tucson, IRes collaborates closely with 22 tribes across the Southwest to co-develop climate solutions and train the next generation of community leaders. Its projects span food sovereignty, water security, and health equity, working to address environmental challenges and build resilience in local communities. In northern Arizona, IRes supports the work of two Hopi farmers who are leaders in food sovereignty, Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a faculty member at IRes, and Lilian Hill, co-founder of Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture Institute. Their work reveals what Hopi lifeways and farming practices can teach the world about building healthy, sustainable food systems.

The Tribal Resilience Graduate Research Awards program was designed in 2021 to strengthen the academic pathways at the University of Arizona for Native American and Indigenous Resilience students and scholars.

Ladd Keith, director of the University of Arizona’s Heat Resilience Initiative within the Arizona Institute for Resilience, has been appointed to Arizona Governor Katie Hobb’s new Workplace Heat Safety Task Force.

Hike Tumamoc Hill enough times on a regular schedule and you're bound to get to know other regular hikers. And in the dead of summer, only the most committed make it out for the evening hikes. At about 4:30 p.m. on Monday, near the hottest point of a 107-degree Tucson summer day, the hill was deserted. But of the few who were out there, they all seemed to know – or know about – Taylor Moore.

An AIR climate science team has developed an extended forecast model to provide warning of extreme weather events much earlier than conventional forecasts. An earlier warning could give people more time to prepare – or escape.

There are small but subtle changes that take place in Southern Arizona's climate before our yearly monsoon rains start.

At the University of Arizona, monsoon season is also a time for friendly competition. Returning for a fifth year is Southwest Monsoon Fantasy Forecasts, a game inspired by fantasy football and March Madness that allows participants to estimate the amount of rainfall the monsoon will bring each month to a handful of cities throughout the Southwest.

At the University of Arizona Campus Agricultural Center, in the shadow of Tucson’s craggy Catalina Mountains, the traditionally planted Hopi cornfield is out of place. “This corn isn’t where it belongs,” says Michael Kotutwa Johnson, associate faculty in the Indigenous Resilience Center within the Arizona Institute for Resilience, and member of the Hopi tribe farming his ancestral land 300 miles north. “The corn and I are on a mission.” 

An informal, virtual public hearing process has begun for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s proposed rule to establish a federal heat standard in the workplace.

Capping off their participation in this year’s Ilíiaitchik: Indigenous Correspondents Program, six students traveled to Washington, D.C., in April to participate in the 2025 Planet Forward Summit at George Washington University.