Profiles

 

DRI Graduate Assistant to Conduct Lake Tahoe Research with Sierra Pacific Fellowship


Posing following the formal awarding of the 2001 Sierra Pacific Fellowship are, left to right, DRI scientist Dr. Christian Fritsen, SPPC Fellow Lesley Jones, SPPC President Jeff Ceccarelli, and DRI President Stephen G. Wells. Dr. Fritsen will supervise Jones' fellowship research program.

The 2001 Sierra Pacific Power Company (SPPC) Fellowship has been awarded to Lesley Jones, a graduate research assistant at the Desert Research Institute. Jones is a student in the Environmental Sciences and Health graduate program at the University of Nevada, Reno. 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.

Jones attended Carson High School and received a Bachelor of Science degree in cellular/molecular biology and community health from Humboldt State University last spring. Her research will focus on microbial transformations of nitrogen in Lake Tahoe and will be directed by Dr. Christian Fritsen, faculty member in DRI's Division of Earth and Ecosystems Sciences.

Jones is the eighth graduate student to receive the Sierra Pacific Fellowship. The Fellowship is awarded competitively, with applications evaluated by a committee of DRI and UNR faculty, and a representative of Sierra Pacific Power Company. For further information, visit the DRI web site at http://www.dri.edu/Opportunities/SPPCo.html.

2001 Maki Fellowship Awarded to Jie Xu

Jie Xu, 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 (UNR), has been awarded DRI's Aileen and Sulo Maki Hydrology/Hydrogeology Fellowship. The competitively selected fellowship includes a three-year award of $15,000 each year to an incoming doctoral student pursuing research in a field related to hydrologic sciences at UNR or the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Xu's fellowship will allow her to continue her graduate work in statistical modeling of groundwater contamination and remediation. Prior to coming to UNR, Xu completed her B.S. and M.S. degrees at Nanjing University in China.

The fellowship was established by Aileen and Sulo Maki, long-time DRI supporters and prominent Las Vegas-area real estate investors in the 1960s and 70s.

Mark B. Green Awarded Maxey Fellowship

The Desert Research Institute has awarded the $12,000 Dr. George B. Maxey Fellowship to Mark B. Green, a graduate research assistant in the Division of Earth and Ecosystems Sciences. The fellowship will support Green's study of nitrogen and phosphorous limitation of periphyton-microorganisms such as algae that grow on underwater surfaces-in the Truckee River watershed. Green, who is working toward his M.S. in hydrology/hydrogeology at the University of Nevada, Reno, sees his research applying to watershed-level nutrient dynamics everywhere. Green completed his undergraduate education at Minnesota State University, Mankato in May 2000.

Maxey, a renowned hydrogeologist, was an early prominent director of DRI's Water Resources Center, who 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 the 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 was a friend of the late Maxey. As a long-time supporter of DRI, Stout has underwritten numerous research and fundraising activities. The Institute's conference center in the Northern Nevada Science Center is named in her honor.

2001 Wagner Memorial Award

DRI has awarded the 2001 Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in the Atmospheric Sciences to Ana Lìa Quijano, who recently earned a Ph.D. in atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The fourth recipient of the Wagner Award, she has accepted a post-doctoral appointment at The Imperial College of Oxford in England.

The $1,000 annual award, established in 1998 by former lieutenant governor Sue Wagner, memorializes her husband, Peter, a DRI scientist who died when a DRI research aircraft crashed in 1980. The national award's purpose is to encourage women graduate students in the atmospheric sciences. The recipient is determined competitively, based on submission of a scientific paper.

Quijano's winning research paper evaluated the effectiveness of the total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) satellite as a means of detecting the levels of atmospheric dust that often spreads around the globe from a regional source. Her analyses reviewed TOMS data taken as major storms produced high levels of dust on several continents. She concluded that TOMS, which has provided daily, global measurements of stratospheric ozone since 1978, was not reliable for monitoring dust.

Application guidelines and selection criteria for the Wagner Award can be found on the DRI web site at http://www.dri.edu/Admin/wagner.html.