News & Announcements
Working to solve our most challenging environmental problems
DRI’s research calls on the expertise and methods of scientists from multiple scientific disciplines. More than 400 highly-skilled scientists, engineers, technicians, students, and staff work collaboratively within and across four research divisions, focused on understanding and answering critical science questions about global climate change, water quality and availability, air quality, the sustainability of desert lands, life in extreme environments, education, and more.
Within an Antarctic Sea Squirt, Scientists Discover a Bacterial Species With Promising Anti-Melanoma Properties
New research has traced the production of palmerolide A, a key compound with anti-melanoma properties, to a suite of genes coded in the genome by a member of a sea squirt’s microbiome.
“Mountain Rain or Snow” Seeks Citizen Scientists and Winter Storm Reports
Mountain Rain or Snow is launching a project where citizen scientists like you can submit observations of rain, snow, and mixed precipitation via your smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet, or any other device with a browser.
1,000 years of glacial ice reveal ‘prosperity and peril’ in Europe
Sandra Brugger, a paleoecologist at the Desert Research Institute, found in her recent study that Europe’s past prosperity and failure, driven by climate changes, has been revealed using thousand-year-old pollen, spores and charcoal particles fossilized in glacial ice.
New DRI Internship Program Focuses on Mentorship for Inclusion in STEM
Fourteen students from Nevada’s two-year colleges are spending this fall building career skills in exciting new directions. The students are conducting hands-on research alongside DRI scientists in Reno and Las Vegas through DRI’s new Research Immersion Internship Program.
Consortium Launches New Online Water Data Platform to Transform Water Management in the Western United States as Droughts Intensify
Desert Research Institute scientists led by Dr. Justin Huntington have been working in collaboration with NASA, EDF, Google, HabitatSeven, and others to launch a new online water data platform, OpenET, to help 17 western states develop more resilient water supplies amid record drought.
Early Human Activities Impacted Earth’s Atmosphere More Than Previously Known
An international team of researchers led by Desert Research Institute analyzed ice core samples from Antarctica’s James Ross Island and found early human activity caused significant changes to the earth’s atmosphere. Their findings were just released in a new Nature journal article.
Fire tornado prediction tools to be developed for public safety during extreme wildfires
University of Nevada, Reno and DRI researchers are building the predictive and diagnostic tools that will transform the understanding of fire-generated extreme weather and pave the way for future life-saving warnings to firefighters and the general public.
Yi Zhang of Princeton University Receives DRI’s 23rd Annual Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Science
DRI is pleased to announce that the 23rd annual Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences has been awarded to Yi Zhang, Ph.D., of Princeton University.
DRI Research Professor Dr. Michael Dettinger Awarded 2021 Tyndall Lecture
DRI announced that research professor Michael Dettinger, Ph.D., has been selected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) to give this year’s Tyndall Lecture at the Fall 2021 AGU meeting.
Study shows a recent reversal in the response of western Greenland’s ice caps to climate change
Although a warming climate is leading to rapid melting of the ice caps and glaciers along Greenland’s coastline, ice caps in this region sometimes grew during past periods of warming, according to new research published today in Nature Geoscience.