DRI rededicates Great Basin Laboratory to honor former UCCSN Regent Gallagher

Dorothy Gallagher

DRI has rededicated its Great Basin Environmental Research Laboratory, called GBERL, in Reno, in honor of former Regent Dorothy S. Gallagher to recognize her strong support of the institute and close relationship with DRI’s faculty and research foundation. DRI President Stephen G. Wells noted that Gallagher was also instrumental in helping the institute secure private financing to construct the unique research facility.

For more than 22 years, Gallagher represented rural central and northern Nevada on the Board of Regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada, a district that encompassed a large part of the Great Basin region.

“As a regent, Dorothy Gallagher worked to bring our scientists together with Nevada’s mining and ranching communities,” Wells said. “She was also closely involved with the DRI Research Foundation, and attended foundation meetings on a regular basis to advise foundation trustees on both system policies and on the Board of Regents’ expectations regarding the role of the university system’s several foundations.”

In addition to modern ecological research support laboratories, GBERL has the capability for conducting long-term simulations of complete ecosystems with precise control of climatological and environmental factors. The lab is conducting a major, four-year experiment funded by the National Science Foundation to assess the response of grassland ecosystems to predicted global warming conditions. The experiment involves observations of large sections transported intact from the Oklahoma prairie to the Reno lab. For more information about GBERL’s research programs, visit the DRI Web page at: http://www.dees.dri.edu/Facilities/gberl.htm.

Unique DRI facility rededicated. DRI’s Great Basin Lab is now named for former Regent Dorothy Gallagher