I am a faculty member in the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering at University of Nevada, Reno, since 2016. Most of my research focuses on the magmatic processes within the crust and upper mantle that drive volcanic eruptions and the formation of continental crust. I combine field work with geochemical and petrologic tools, while also including physical constraints during magma evolution. In particular, I am interested in the assembly of arc magmas and the timescales associated with formation, storage, transport, and eruption of those magmas.
I am also interested in the links of magmatic processes to the formation of mineral deposits and the processes that are controlled by magmatic fluids.
Richard Plotkin
My research uses multiwavelength space- and ground-based observations to study black hole accretion and relativistic jets, over the full range of black hole masses and accretion rates (from quiescent to super-Eddington). My main research goal is to better understand the structure/geometry of accretion flows and outflows in different accretion regimes, in order to more effectively use radiation as a probe of Galactic and extragalactic black hole populations.
Brad Sion
Brad Sion is an Assistant Research Professor of Geomorphology at the Desert Research Institute. He has a BS in Geology and Environmental Geoscience from the College of Charleston, and an MS and PhD in Hydrology from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with a focus on geomorphology and Quaternary geology. Brad began his research career in central New Mexico studying soils and landscape evolution. His research has expanded to areas in southern Nevada, central and southern California, and parts of the midwestern US, and focuses on soil geomorphology and applied soils research. He currently participates in a wide range of research projects that specifically rely on the use of soil datasets to infer landscape characteristics and processes. Examples include vehicle trafficability, surficial geologic mapping, effects of Quaternary climate change on landscape stability, and timing and rates of geomorphic processes.
Zaijing Sun
Dr. Sun is an associate professor in the Department of Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Nuclear Physics from Idaho State University in 2012 with an area specification in radiation sciences and acceleration applications. Before joining UNLV, he had been an assistant/associate professor at the South Carolina State University and a postdoc in the Nuclear Engineering Division at the Argonne National laboratory.
Dr. Sun has been instructing many courses in health physics and radiation sciences such as Radiation Sciences, Introduction to Health Physics, Radiation Detection and Measurement, Introduction of Nuclear and Radiochemistry, Ionizing Radiation, Radioisotope Laboratory, etc. His research interests include Health Physics, Radiochemistry, Nuclear Activation Analysis (NAA and PAA), Computer Simulations of Nuclear Processes, Gamma-ray Spectroscopy and 3-D isotopic imaging, Medical Application of Particle Accelerators, Archaeometry, Temporal Data Mining (TDM) in Nuclear Decommissioning and Medical Imaging, and Medical Isotope Production. He is a member of the Health Physics Society, American Nuclear Society, and American Physical Society.
Carl Haster
I am an Assistant Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Nevada Center for Astrophysics at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Before this, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at the LIGO Laboratory and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT, a CITA Postdoctoral Fellow at Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics a PhD student at University of Birmingham and a MPhys student at University of Manchester.
My main research interests are all the exciting things we can learn about the extremes of our Universe through observations of Gravitational Waves (for example using the current LIGO, or future Cosmic Explorer, instruments). I am particularly interested in finding satisfactory robust connections between the observed population of compact objects, mainly black holes and neutron stars, and the astrophysical processes through which these objects are formed and evolve. I am also interested in exploring matter at its extremes, like what can be found in coalescing neutron star binaries, how this can be observed using as many astrophysical messengers as possible and help us find the best model for the Neutron Star Equation of State. Finally, I enjoy working on the inference methods used to analyse these gravitational wave signals, in order to improve their speed, fidelity and robustness. This will in turn be crucial for using these observations for precision tests of General Relativity as our preferred theory of gravitation, as otherwise it’s easy to confuse a claimed beyondGR detection caused by a not-accurate-enough analysis.
Dean Smith
As a career diamond anvil cell enthusiast, my research primarily concerns the pursuit of the new structures of materials and chemical compounds emergent under extreme pressures, as well as new methods to measure properties of samples exposed to extreme pressures and temperatures. I began my research in the UK, studying for a Ph.D. with Dr. John Proctor at the University of Salford, and moved to the US as a postdoctoral scholar at UNLV. From there, I spent two years working at HPCAT (Sector 16 of the Advanced Photon Source) – a group of synchrotron beamlines dedicated to the advancement of high-pressure experiments.
Much of my career has been spent developing and refining optical instruments for diamond anvil cell experiments, particularly instruments which interface with synchrotron beamlines. As a postdoc at UNLV, I helped to design and construct a mid-infrared laser heating instrument for experiments at the HPCAT diffraction beamline, facilitating laser-heated DAC experiments on materials spanning semiconductors, ceramics, covalent crystals, and minerals. However, I am a passionate proponent of in-house experiments, and hope to ensure that NEXCL laboratories generate data with the same pace and quality as the large-scale user facilities.
David Mitchell
Dr. David Mitchell received a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, USA, in 1995 and has contributed to the peer-reviewed literature in the atmospheric science sub-disciplines of cloud physics, radiation, remote sensing and climate dynamics. He and his students developed a theory describing the evolution of the North American monsoon that is now widely accepted, and he developed a treatment of ice cloud radiative properties that is currently used in the NCAR climate models. He and Dr. Anne Garnier developed and published (in 2016) the first satellite remote sensing retrieval for ice particle concentrations and later discovered the percentage of cirrus clouds strongly affected by homogeneous ice nucleation (globally in terms of latitude and season). He published the first paper on the climate intervention method known as “cirrus cloud thinning” (CCT) that can be verified using the above satellite remote sensing method (should it ever be deployed). He has given 40 invited talks at universities and research institutes in the USA, the U.K., Germany, Mexico, Norway, France, and Sweden.
Craig Schwartz
We use X-ray sources around the world around the world to understand disordered materials, particularly at interfaces, using large international laser facilities such as those in Italy and Japan. This includes materials such as liquids to better understand fundamental phenomena like how evaporation occurs. It also includes solar cells where we try to make ever more efficient devices.
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.
Michael Pravica
I am a high pressure physicist who studies matter subjected to extreme conditions using spectroscopic means (infrared, Raman, x-ray absorption and nuclear magnetic resonance.).