SEPHAS provides a unique opportunity in education for everyone to explore our facility. We offer specialized tours to K-12 educational system as well as the general public. We also offer exceptional opportunities for Graduate and Post-Doctoral students looking for real world experience.

Educational Outreach

The Desert Research Institute, as a member of the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), is committed to Nevada's K-12 education system and teachers so they can bring real world knowledge back into their classrooms.

Tours are available for community, school, business, and other groups by appointment. Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Educational Opportunities

SEPHAS provides an excellent opportunity to maximize the benefits from educational programs by providing graduate student and post doctoral fellowships. Graduate fellowships are available to UNR, UNLV, and DRI students to conduct research with SEPHAS faculty. Post doctoral fellowships involve large-scale independent projects under the directorate of faculty. Post doctoral fellows are encouraged to further develop research proposals that can be submitted to external funding agencies.

Graduate Fellowships

Graduate Fellowships in Vadose Zone Hydrology
The research program "Scaling Environmental Processes in Heterogeneous Arid Soils (SEPHAS)," one of three themes in the NSF EPSCoR Ring III Project, has been funded to examine the scaling of subsurface and landscape-interface environmental processes in arid soils in the state of Nevada. Three fellowships funded by this program are available for Fall 2006 for qualified Ph.D. students interested in the laboratory, field, and numerical study on the spatiotemporal variation in soil moisture, soil-water-plan interactions, scaling effect of soil moisture on various hydrologic processes, and solute transport in the arid regions. Each year of the Fellowship, successful candidates will receive a $20,000 Fellowship, fringe calculated at the institutional rates, tuition costs for 18 credits, and $2000 in supply funds. Potential applicants have to apply for the admission through the graduate programs in the University of Nevada Las Vegas or University of Nevada Reno. For more information, please contact Dr. Zhongbo Yu ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), and Dr. Scott Tyler ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or visit our website at http://hydro.nevada.edu/sephas/.

Post-Doctoral Fellowships

Vadose Zone Hydrology in Arid Regions
Nevada’s NSF EPSCoR Program “Research Infrastructure for Nevada’s Growth - Targeting Research with Uniqueness and Excellence III (RING-TRUE III)” announces a call for a Postdoctoral Fellowship position as part of the research development program, “Scaling Environmental Processes in Heterogeneous Arid Soils” (SEPHAS).