The Colin Warden Memorial Endowment was established by Mr. Warden's family and friends after his death in 1991. The endowment recognizes outstanding graduate students working on DRI projects or who have DRI faculty members directly supervising their graduate research. The amount of the award will be $1,500. The award will be based on the best research paper submitted by a student on subjects related to identification and/or resolution of an environmental problem. Criteria for the award, eligibility requirements and scheduling are as follow.

Eligibility

To be eligible, the student must be a full- or part-time enrollee in a graduate program at either the University of Nevada, Reno, or the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The student must be in good standing and have been in residence at least one semester. In addition, the student must be involved in a DRI-affiliated research project or must have a DRI faculty member supervising his/her graduate research.

Papers must be based on original research directly related to the identification, clarification, and/or resolution of modern environmental problems. Modern environmental data need not be the basis of the research, so long as applicability of the data to modern environmental problems can be demonstrated. Please only one entry per person (per year).  If there is a question concerning acceptability of a particular subject area, please contact the Vice President for Academic Affairs ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) before preparing a paper.

* Manuscripts on which the student is the first author and that have been published, submitted for publication, or are in press in peer reviewed journals within the last 12 months are acceptable for consideration. *

Criteria for Evaluation of Papers

Papers will be evaluated based on the following (in decreasing order of importance):

1. Originality of ideas expressed and presentation of concept.
2. How well the subject matter relates to real-world environmental problems or their resolution.
3. How well the research is thought out and defined with introduction, methods, results, and conclusions.

The paper should be in a form acceptable for publication.

The award committee recognizes that most science is a collaborative effort. In order to better understand the nature of the collaborations, a letter from the student, cosigned by the student's advisor must be included. This letter should detail how much of the work was primarily the student's and how much input came from the advisor and any other co-authors.

Application Procedure

Submit an electronic version (PDF) of the paper to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Copies of the papers will be distributed to each of the selection committee members for review and ranking. The student's advisor should forward his/her letter directly to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  The deadline for submission for 2012 is April 30th, 2012.

Contact: VPAA
Office: 775/673-7376
2215 Raggio Parkway
Reno, NV 89512
e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Announcement of this award will be made at DRI's June Convocation.

Previous Winners

2011 - Jazmin Aravena
2009 - Todd Caldwell 
2008 - Pan Feng
2007 - Danyal Petersen
2006 - Jun Yin
2005 - Rajan Chakrabarty
2004 - Matthew Reeves
2003 - Guadalupe Paredes - Miranda
2002 - Dorothea Ivanova
2001 - Leland Tarnay
2000 - Daniel Obrist
1999 - Rina Schumer
1998 - David Mazera
1997 - Flora Gofa
1996 - Stephen Metzger
1995 - Clay A. Cooper