Dr. Spiegal is a Range Management Specialist at the USDA-ARS Range Management Research Unit in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she co-directs the Sustainable Southwest Beef Coordinated Agricultural Project. Dr. Spiegal conducts collaborative research to compare the effects of agricultural production systems in order to understand how the systems promote or detract from the sustainable intensification of US agriculture. Connections among the distant links of the US beef supply chain are a primary focus, from ranching in the Southwest to beef cattle finishing on grains and grass in the Southern and Northern Plains, to marketing strategies in all locations. With an eye toward recycling as a basic component of sustainability, she investigates viable strategies for recycling manure nutrients in the lands surrounding livestock feeding sites - to meet environmental, production, and human wellbeing goals of animal and crop producers alike in the "manuresheds" surrounding the feeding sites.