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.
Lazaro Perez
My work seeks to identify and understand the coupling between physical heterogeneity and biochemical processes that control environmental biogeochemical reactions, energy, and mass transfer processes in the environment. We design and implement multiscale laboratory experiments visualization and numerical modeling.
My research is highly collaborative and multidisciplinary that provides domain expertise in scale biogeochemistry, reactive transport processes, multiphase flow systems, lab-to-field-scale hydrogeology, and computational geochemistry.
Douglas Sims
Douglas Sims is Dean, School of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics at the College of Southern Nevada. He leads a school of more than 280 staff (FT and PT) serving 18000+ students. His focus is in sediments, geochemistry, environmental chemistry, and paleohydrology in the Southern Great Basin and Mojave Desert. Current projects are paleohydrology of desert playas, trace metals scavenging by rock varnish, surface water quality, and sediment migration and transport of trace metals in agricultural soils.
Elisabeth “Libby” Hausrath
Dr. Hausrath is an aqueous geochemist and astrobiologist, and the overall theme of her research program is to investigate interactions between water and minerals, and the impacts of life on those interactions. They use a combination of field work, laboratory experiments, and modeling to investigate signatures of aqueous alteration and life, the rates at which these reactions occur, and how they differ on Earth and on other planets such as Mars. Our work helps understand chemical weathering, nutrient release, the formation of soils, and biosignatures on both Earth and Mars.
Matthew Lachniet
Dr. Lachniet’s research focuses on understanding the controls on Earth’s climate on time scales ranging from seasonal to 100s of thousands years, with a particular focus on tropical and arctic past climates. These data inform understanding of modern and anthropogenic climate change. He is co-director of the Las Vegas Isotope Science (LVIS) Lab in the Science and Engineering Building. Dr. Lachniet has an active research program in which he uses light stable and radiogenic isotope geochemistry, hydrology, speleology, glacial geology, geomorphology, and the sedimentary record to answer questions of paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic change. His primary research areas are Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Alaska, and the Great Basin.