Sarrah Dunham-Cheatham

I am a research scientist with a background in environmental chemistry, geochemistry, and soil science. I am especially interested in applying bench-scale experiments and molecular level characterizations to understand field-scale behavior and fate of environmental contaminants and compounds.

David Simeral

David has been with the Desert Research Institute (DRI) and Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) since 2003 as an Associate Research Scientist in Climatology. His professional interests cover a broad spectrum within the fields of climatology, meteorology, and physical geography including expertise in drought, mountain climatology, mountain geography, field-related campaigns collecting weather and climate data, instrumentation, Geographic Information Systems, and communicating scientific information to decision makers, stakeholders, media, and the public.

Jared Bruce

Photochemistry is central to many aspects of energy conversion, atmospheric chemistry, corrosion, and catalysis. The ability to drive chemical reactions selectively and efficiently on surfaces with light remains a significant challenge, as these transformations are often dependent on the structure and chemical nature of the material surface. Furthermore, as more complex, multi-component materials are used in photochemical applications, robust model systems are needed to understand how synergistic properties impact these transformations.

The Bruce Group focuses on processes related to the conversion of light to drive chemical reactions at different interfaces. Our group are world experts in surface chemistry using ultrahigh vacuum, near ambient pressure, and operando spectroscopy/microscopy techniques. This, coupled with electrochemical and photoelectrochemical characterization, enables a unique insight into photochemical conversions at gas-liquid, liquid-solid, and solid-gas interfaces.

Douglas Boyle

Dr. Boyle is a watershed hydrologist with over 25 years of experience in the field of hydrology and water resources with an emphasis in the development, implementation, and evaluation of complex computer-based hydrologic models to simulate watershed response to precipitation (rainfall and snowmelt). Integrated computer-based modeling of hydrologic processes to understand the impacts of historic and future climate on water resources in arid and semi-arid environments using paleoclimate information (e.g., pluvial lake shore dating, tree ring records and other climate indicators), global climate model estimates (e.g., paleo, historic, and future precipitation and temperature estimates from both statistical and dynamically downscaled studies), and instrumental ground-based information (e.g., NWS Co-op data, NRCS SNOTEL data, and PRISM data sets). Additional research interests include streamflow forecasting, water leasing and banking, water markets, GIS, remote sensing, parameter estimation and uncertainty analysis, and automated multi-criteria optimization. Dr. Boyle is a former Director of the Nevada Water Resources Research Institute.

Eric Wilcox

Dr. Wilcox’s research addresses the interactions among aerosols, clouds, and precipitation towards a goal of improved understanding of precipitation, cloud variability and radiative forcing of climate at regional scales. This work relies on satellite and in-situ observations, as well as simulations with numerical models of the atmosphere and climate.

Dr. Wilcox manages DRI’s climate modeling group, which implements a wide range of numerical models, including fine-resolution atmospheric models for regional climate studies and applied research in water resources and renewable energy projects, air quality and chemistry models, and global coupled ocean/atmosphere climate models.

Dr. Wilcox teaches Atmospheric Physics (ATMS 411/611) and Atmospheric Modeling (ATMS 746) at University of Nevada, Reno. He is an associate editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, an associate director of the Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium for DRI, and he serves as a member representative to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) on behalf of the Nevada System of Higher Education.