Stanley Shumaker, a retired civil engineer and an amateur archaeologist, initiated the Geoarchaeology Lab Fund with a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) at the end of 2024. The fund will support Dr. Teresa Wriston’s Geoarchaeology Lab, and her research centering on how past cultures coped or adapted to changing environmental conditions.
DRI is thrilled to announce that Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is our first official Corporate Partner. “Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is excited to join DRI’s Corporate Partners program. This partnership aligns well with our sustainability goals and we look forward to working with DRI in the year ahead.” – Lori Nelson-Kraft, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Brittany Kruger, Ph.D. was selected as the 2024 recipient of this award for her proposal “Nitrogen Dynamics in Arid Agriculture: Optimizing for both Farmer and Environment.” The Harold J. Kruse Farming and Environment Award was established in 2022 by Stephanie Kruse, DRI Foundation Trustee, to honor her father’s legacy and recognize his farming business sense. Thank you to Stephanie Kruse and her brother, Norm Kruse, for their continued support of this award.
Thank you to the generous donors who supported the Innovation Research Program Endowment through DRI’s 2024 year-end giving campaign. These gifts brought us significantly closer to raising the $5M needed to fully fund the IRP Endowment and ensure support for innovative research is available to DRI scientists for generations to come.
This giving season, please join us in supporting bright minds and their best ideas by donating to the IRP Endowment, which was established earlier this year to ensure that innovative science continues for generations to come. Your gift will bring us one step closer to our goal of raising $5 million to fully fund this endowment. To date, this program has supported more than 20 research teams and several successful research programs have grown out of IRP-supported preliminary research.
Tiffany Morales, Founder and President of Ray of Sunshine Ministry, is bringing STEM education to foster children and homeschool students in Southern Nevada. This year, Ray of Sunshine is utilizing DRI STEM Education Program’s Green Boxes to provide STEM and robotics programs to these groups. Morales said, “With DRI’s service, we’re able to provide excellent robotics programs to homeschool groups and foster care facilities, absolutely free of cost to us and to them.”
Twenty-six years since it was first awarded, the Peter B. Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Science remains the only award in the United States for female graduate students in the atmospheric sciences. Thanks to the generosity of Sue Wagner, the exceptional work of women graduate students in the atmospheric sciences will continue to be recognized and honored in perpetuity.
The Nell J. Redfield Foundation recently made a three-year commitment to support Nevada Robotics’ Books and Bots Teacher Trainings, which will provide classroom lessons in Pre-Kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms using robots and storybooks.
Earlier this year, thanks to generous matching commitments from the Tom and Mary Gallagher Foundation and the Bretzlaff Foundation, DRI established the IRP Endowment, ensuring funding in perpetuity. To maximize the impact of the IRP Endowment, the Gallagher Foundation and Bretzlaff Foundation have made their commitments a dollar for dollar match up to $2 million with a goal of raising a $5 million endowment.
Betty Gallifent recently established the Elizabeth and John Gallifent Endowment, which will provide unrestricted support for DRI.