"I easily might have become a career lifeguard," says Dr. David Benson, one of DRI's most recent additions. An unusual proclamation from a scientist, perhaps, but Benson is not bound by conventional thinking. While dedicating his career to science, water has played a continuing role in Benson's life. In time, the two blended. At New Mexico State University on a swimming scholarship, he earned his undergraduate degree in geology with emphases in physics, chemistry and mathematics. As he earned his M.S. at California State University, San Diego, the six-foot-four-inch, athlete-scientist worked as a lifeguard on San Diego's beaches. "I loved lifeguarding," remembers Benson, "but my career was not under my control." Already enamored with earth science, he found his calling.
"I took a hydrogeology class," Benson recalls, "and found the highly mathematical, very applied course work incredibly stimulating." That course was enough to shift his focus to hydrogeology. Meanwhile, Benson met Dr. Stephen Wheatcraft, a University of Nevada, Reno, professor-and former DRI faculty member-known for his focus on fractals. Keen to work with Wheatcraft, Benson pursued his doctoral studies at UNR.
However, as Benson worked with subsurface flow models, he found the standard dispersion equations just didn't work well. "The old model assumes that things are smooth," Benson notes, scribbling equations on a large, well-used whiteboard in his office. "The new equation measures fractals correctly, because it assumes roughness." As Benson explains it, by making the variable a constant, it freed him to experiment with fractional differentials in the equation, yielding more accurate results. All very simple, right?
Yet what to Benson seems "dirt simple," is causing somewhat of a stir in the scientific community. "This is all new stuff," says Benson. "Although it is reasonably esoteric, once you work through the fractal derivative definitions, the approach is easily taught and easily grasped." New thought processes usually take time to catch on, and Benson continues to refine his approach. "I'm preparing a new grant proposal," Benson muses, as he pours coffee from his ever-present office pot. "I'm working on the applicability of this approach to flow and transport in unsaturated rock."
A talented addition to DRI's Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Benson came to DRI in 1994 thanks to the Institute's George Burke Maxey Fellowship. Currently funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, Benson continues his work on fractional advection-dispersion-the subject of his doctoral thesis-with Wheatcraft, UNR Mathematics Associate Professor Mark Meerschaert, and a collection of post-doctoral researchers and students.
If the bureaucracy of lifeguarding had been less forbidding, Dave Benson might have taken quite a different path. As it is, however, he bounds the DRI stairs two-at-a-time in his excitement to dream up new ways to use his approach.
Lynn Taylor
DRI Researcher Gets a Global Position
To DRI researcher Dr. Jay Arnone, life, or at least work, is a puzzle. "I
like to work top down," he says, "identifying an issue or problem on a
global scale, then taking it apart." Good thing, since his research
focuses on understanding the effects of global environmental change on
the Earth's ecosystems. And Arnone is in a great position to put together
many pieces of the global change puzzle, having recently been named
director of DRI's Frits Went Laboratory.
The Frits Went Laboratory is a sophisticated, controlled-environment facility equipped to address a range of environmental issues including global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and hazardous waste management, to name just a few. "The research possibilities here are basically limitless," says Arnone. The lab's EcoCELLs-Ecologically Controlled Enclosed Lysimeter Laboratories-are unique chambers designed for carefully monitoring the very small-scale biological, chemical, and physical processes of plant communities, the pieces of the ecological puzzle that build a global picture for researchers.
As director, Arnone says his first goal is to let the scientific community know about this unique facility. "During my eight years in Switzerland, I jerry-built equipment to work something like our EcoCELLs. When I came to DRI, I couldn't believe what was here. It was unknown to me and still is not well known among most of the other researchers in the field." Arnone plans to change that by marketing the facility to scientists, government agencies, and industries worldwide.
Facilities like the Frits Went lab are important for understanding the underlying mechanisms of an ecosystem, but Arnone points out that they can't replace studies in a natural environment. Right now, Arnone is also looking at the problem of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) using the National Science Foundations's Free-Air CO2 Enrichment, or FACE, facility at the Nevada Test Site in southern Nevada. Here CO2 is released over closely watched patches of desert. "It's the perfect place to observe the effects of elevated CO2 on a completely natural environment," observes Arnone. "You avoid any kind of 'chamber effect' you might get by creating this situation in a laboratory." He's also keeping a close eye on the small burrowing animals that he says are important in a desert ecosystem, not only because they move earth or distribute seeds, but also because their burrows have a considerable effect on the way water moves in and out of the soil.
Arnone would like to continue to bring together field and laboratory studies to shed even more light on the complex processes of global change using the unique Frits Went Laboratory. "It's part of my philosophy to try to combine experimental approaches. With some modifications of the Frits Went Laboratory, it would be possible to excavate intact pieces of an actual ecosystem, like part of a FACE site, and establish them inside an EcoCELL." That would mean the best of both research worlds and maybe a better world for all of us.
Jackie Allen
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