Stewart Awarded Sierra Pacific Fellowship: Will Conduct Antarctic Research

The 2000 Sierra Pacific Power Company Fellowship has been awarded to Frank Stewart, a graduate research assistant at the Desert Research Institute, and a student in the Ecological Toxicology graduate program at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). The fellowship provides a one-year award of $16,000 from Sierra Pacific Power Company, an office at DRI, and use of the Institute's computer and laboratory facilities.

Sierra Pacific Power Company President Jeffrey L. Ceccarelli (left)and Frank Stewart

Stewart is a graduate of Bishop Manogue High School in Reno and received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology at Middlebury College in Vermont last spring. He will apply his fellowship toward his assignment in the U.S. Southern Ocean Global Ecosystem Dynamics Program, which will take him to Antarctica during the 2001 austral summer.

Stewart will work on a study of the biological, chemical, and physical factors affecting the overwintering capability of Antarctic krill in waters surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula. Krill are planktonic crustaceans that form an important link in the marine food chain supporting animals such as fish, penguins, and whales.

The seventh graduate student to receive the Sierra Pacific Fellowship, Stewart has already made one research trip to Antarctica under the direction of his advisor, DRI scientist Chris Fritsen. In that project Stewart studied the microbiological ecology of Antarctica's Dry Valleys, a relatively ice-free region of the frozen continent.

Stewart's personal research interest is developing an in-depth understanding of how natural systems function at an ecosystem level, and how human activity can both adversely modify their function and help remedy environmental disturbances.

The Fellowship is awarded competitively, with applications evaluated by a committee of DRI and UNR faculty, as well as by a representative of Sierra Pacific Power.

For further information on the Sierra Pacific Fellowship, please visit the fellowship page on DRI's web site at http://www.dri.edu/GradPrograms/Fellowships/SPPCo.html.

Hartsough Awarded Maki Hydrology/Hydrogeology Fellowship

Peter Hartsough

Peter C. Hartsough, a graduate research assistant in the Desert Research Institute's Division of Hydrologic Sciences, and Ph.D. student in the hydrologic sciences program at the University of Nevada, Reno, has been awarded DRI's Aileen and Sulo Maki Hydrology/Hydrogeology Fellowship. The competitively selected fellowship includes a three-year award of $15,000 per year to an incoming Ph.D. student at UNR or UNLV who is pursuing research in a field related to hydrologic sciences.

Hartsough's fellowship will help him continue research in the reconstructing of past climate conditions that produced widespread groundwater recharge in the Great Basin. His studies will help assess how groundwater moves across the basin and how pollutants and dissolved materials are transported in the water. He says the knowledge will help develop water supplies and quantify the stability of waste disposal sites in arid regions.

The fellowship was established by Aileen and Sulo Maki, longtime DRI supporters who were prominent real estate investors in the Las Vegas area in the 1960s and '70s. Hartsough received his M.S. in Hydrogeology at UNR and B.S. in Earth Sciences at The Evergreen State College in Washington State.

The Desert Research Institute has awarded the 2000 Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in the Atmospheric Sciences to Teresa M. Bals-Elsholz, a Ph.D. student in earth and atmospheric sciences at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

The $1,000 annual award was established in 1998 by former Nevada Lt. Governor Sue Wagner in memory of her husband, Peter, a DRI scientist who died in the 1980 crash of a DRI research aircraft. The national award's purpose is to encourage women graduate students in the atmospheric sciences. The recipient is determined competitively based on submission of scientific papers.

"The Peter B. Wagner award provided a unique opportunity to compete with other women in atmospheric science, and it gave me an enormous amount of pride to receive this award," said Bals-Elsholz. "This paper competition was a welcome boost of encouragement and a professional nod of affirmation to continue in my pursuit of a Ph.D. in atmospheric science."

Bals-Elsholz's paper analyzed conditions affecting the level of critical winter rainfall during cold weather surges into Central America from the continental United States. Her study of climate and weather records showed that greater precipitation occurred when moist air from the Pacific was able to penetrate a "seam" through tropical high pressure into the western Caribbean-eastern Mexico region to mix with the cold air surges from the north.

Applicants for the Wagner Award must be pursuing a Masters or Ph.D. in a program of atmospheric sciences, or a related field, and submit a paper based on original research directly related to the identification, clarification, and/or resolution of an atmospheric or climatic problem.

For further information, visit the DRI web site page for the award at http://www.dri.edu/Admin/wagner.html, or contact Dr. Claudia Miner, (775) 674-7551 or cminer@dri.edu.

DRI Gives Maxey Fellowship and Award to Graduate Students

The Desert Research Institute has awarded the George B. (Burke) and Jane Maxey Fellowship to Graduate Research Assistant Matt Herrick. He will use the $12,000 fellowship to test the validity of recently developed theoretical models describing how pollutants move through groundwater. Herrick, working toward his M.S. in hydrology and hydrogeology at the University of Nevada, Reno, will evaluate a model developed by one of his faculty advisors, DRI scientist David Benson, himself a Maxey Fellowship winner in 1994.

Matt Herrick and Elizabeth "Betty" West Stout

Maxey, a renowned hydrogeologist and an early and prominent director of DRI's Division of Hydrologic Sciences, established the first Ph.D. program in Nevada's higher education system. He and his wife, Jane, also provided considerable extracurricular support and guidance for hydrology and hydrogeology graduate students. The Maxey Building at DRI's Northern Nevada Science Center in Reno is named in Maxey's memory.

The fellowship was established by Elizabeth "Betty" West Stout, a paleontologist who is a longtime supporter of DRI and a friend of the late Maxey. Stout has underwritten numerous research and fundraising activities, and the Institute recently named its conference center in the Northern Nevada Science Center in Reno in her honor.

In a related award, Nicole Brown, who recently received an M.S. in Water Resources Management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was awarded the $1,000 Maxey Award in Water Resources Research from DRI. The award was established by the friends and family of Burke Maxey.

Her winning competitive research paper about the interaction of groundwater pollutants with surrounding rock and soil was based on core samples from the site of a nuclear weapons test in the Aleutian Islands.

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