I am an Assistant Research Professor and Manager of the DRI Luminescence Laboratory (DRILL). My research combines field observations and sedimentology, remote sensing (the interpretation of air photos, satellite imagery, Digital Elevation Models or LiDAR imagery), and geochronological methods to gain insights into the style and rate of landscape change and human/environment interactions in the Quaternary Period. My research includes developing luminescence dating techniques to refine temporal records in archaeology and geology, and I am the writer of The Glow Curve Blog: https://theglowcurve.org/blog.
Kevin Heintz
My specialty is data acquisition for groundwater and hydrometeorological applications, especially remote environmental sensing and aquifer characterization.
Other research interests include numerical modeling of hydraulics and heat transport as well as evaluating the functionality of springs and riparian areas.
Philippe Vidon
Executive Director for the Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences
Philippe obtained his PhD in Geography from York University, ON, Canada in 2004, and subsequently occupied professor positions at Indiana University – Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI) and at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry a.k.a. ESF, in Syracuse, NY. There he served as Director of the Hydrological Systems Science Council, among other leadership appointments. His most recent research has focused on a broad range of topics including (but not limited to): watershed management, water quality, soil biogeochemistry (e.g., N, P, C, Hg cycling and soil N2O, CO2, and CH4 emissions), bioenergy, and the impact of beaver dam analogues on floodplain hydrogeomorphology and landscape resiliency.
Kathleen Rodrigues
Kathleen is a Quaternary geochronologist that specializes in radiation exposure dating techniques including optically stimulated luminescence, thermally stimulated luminescence and electron spin resonance. Her research interests are focused on the development and application of luminescence dating methods to address questions in Quaternary geomorphology, paleoclimatology, and archaeology. Her recent work has focused primarily on the development of novel methods for dating eruption events in the Great Basin and defining the timescales over which tephra reworking occurs in the landscape.
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.
Derek Kauneckis
Dr. Derek Kauneckis is an affiliated associate research faculty in the Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at the Desert Research Institute and associate professor of environmental studies at Ohio University. His research focuses on regional environmental governance, how people interact with environmental resources, and the emergence of cooperative institutions. He has examined behavioral and institutional components of resilience planning, climate policy networks, and the role of technology in the science/policy interface. His research has been published in the Journal of Coastal Management, Simulation & Gaming, Environmental Management, Studies in Comparative International Development, Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, among others. Dr. Kauneckis currently serves as an Advisory Committee Member for the Department of Homeland Security’s Resilient Investment Planning and Development Working Group, and leads the Advisory Group on Professional Education for the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP). Dr. Kauneckis’ research has been sponsored by Fulbright, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Agriculture (USDA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Gabrielle Boisrame
The majority of Dr. Boisrame’s research focuses on the interactions between wildfire, land cover, and water in mountain regions of the Western USA. Since 2013 she has been using a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing, and hydrological modeling to explore how managing natural wildfire in landscapes can improve water resources and forest health. Before coming to DRI, she worked as an environmental scientist for the Delta Stewardship Council, a California State Agency. In this position, she studied adaptive management strategies and calculated large-scale water budgets. Other research areas include agricultural water management, consumptive use calculations, restoration of wetlands and streams, and groundwater resource management.
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.
M. Rashed Khan
Khan Lab@UNR aims to study, design, and develop soft materials, unconventional processes, and reconfigurable micro/nanodevices that can be harnessed and optimized further for advanced biochemical, biomedical, and physicochemical applications. The lab is also keen to establish a multidisciplinary smart-manufacturing research group, including researchers from various backgrounds. Through short and long-term active collaboration, Khan Lab@UNR would like to address fundamental challenges associated with soft micro-device fabrication, 3D/4D (bio)printing, and patterning, advanced hybrid sensor manufacturing, biomedical device development – which are still unnoticed and under-explored, and need further investigation.
Additionally, our group also focuses on computational neuroscience and neurobioengineering. Under this research direction, we study human brain, brain functions, brain structure so that the established knowledge can be broadly applicable to general biomecical science and knowledge of the brain and brain-diseases.