| Maki Fellowships
Awarded to Rost and Meadows
Andrew Rost and Darren
Meadows, graduate research assistants in the Desert Research Institute’s
Division of Hydrologic Sciences, and Ph.D. students in the hydrologic
sciences program at the University of Nevada, Reno, have both been
awarded an Aileen and Sulo Maki Hydrology/Hydrogeology Fellowship
from DRI. The competitively selected fellowship includes a three-year
award of $15,000 per year to incoming graduate students at UNR or
UNLV pursuing research in a field related to hydrologic sciences.
Rost will apply the fellowship
to using computer-based models of watershed hydrology with the goal
of improving the effectiveness of the models to support management
decisions. His research approach will attempt to incorporate components
of ecology, economics, and political systems into the models, with
an emphasis on uncertainty and risk.
Meadows will be investigating
the relationship between the condition of desert pavement (hard
surface crust) and the infiltration and distribution of water within
the soil directly beneath the pavement. His research proposal notes
that pavements, generally composed of a layer of closely packed
gravel over a layer of silt, are suspected to be one of the more
significant factors influencing arid land ecosystems.
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.
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