An internationally recognized expert in biogeochemistry and atmospheric cycling of mercury

Daniel Obrist, Ph.D., DRI Associate Research Professor in the Division of Atmospheric Sciences is one of this year’s recipients of the NSHE Rising Researcher Award. Obrist uses multi-disciplinary approaches to characterize mercury pollution and chemistry. He’s successfully developed a major research program in this area at DRI, with external research funding totaling $3.3million in the last four years.

Obrist's research interests include atmospheric chemistry, transport, and biogeochemistry of pollutants and quantification of surface exchange processes of atmospheric constituents between soils, plants, and the atmosphere. A special emphasis includes cycling of mercury in the environment and how global change and disturbances affect these processes.

One of his current projects focuses on the mercury at the Dead Sea-which has implications regarding mercury deposition across the oceans of the world. Through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Obrist and Menachem Luria, Ph.D., professor at Hebrew University and an adjunct professor at DRI, are currently working to answers important questions regarding the chemical compounds and pathways responsible for mercury oxidation at the Dead Sea.

Obrist is also working on an EPA STAR grant – highly competitive grant with most proposals having less than a 5% chance of success – to evaluate the impact of climate change on mercury levels and sequestration. In collaboration with DRI’s optical physicist, Hans Moosmüller, Ph.D. he also received a NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant to develop, a novel, state-of-the-art sensor to measure atmospheric mercury at high temporal resolution.

Obrist earned a master’s degree in plant ecology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and a Ph.D. in hydrogeology from the University of Nevada, Reno.