Duane Moser

I have conducted scientific research mostly focused on aquatic or underground environments on the U.S. Great Lakes and inland waters in Wisconsin and Washington State, North Atlantic, Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Dry Valleys and the deep subsurface in South Africa, Canada, and the United States. The underground work employs mines, natural caves, and boreholes from surface. I have published over 90 peer-reviewed papers, have appeared in the scientific and popular press many times and have numerous technical reports, white papers, and other works. My work has been cited over 7,700 times, with an h-index of 39 and i10-index of 63 (02/26/2026). Currently, my work focuses on life in extreme environments, astrobiology, emerging contaminants, using environmental DNA as a conservation tool, and molecular archaeology.

I have been an associate professor in the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at Desert Research Institute since 2017. Prior to that I was an associate or assistant professor in the Division of Earth and Ecosystems Sciences at DRI (appointed in 2005). I am adjunct professor in the UNLV School of Life Sciences, Department of Geosciences, and Water Resources Management. I did postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton University in Geosciences and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. I obtained a Ph.D. (With Distinction) in Limnology and Oceanography from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and the Center for Great Lakes Studies and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and an associates degree in Reclamation/Geology from the University of Wisconsin, Platteville.

Azimrh Zare Harofteh

Dr. Zare Harofteh's research spans both fundamental and applied topics, including the development of air quality prediction models, atmospheric chemistry (such as the evolution of chemical composition in wildfire plumes), fire process modeling, fire-atmosphere interactions, and environmental justice in terms of air pollution exposure. She utilizes a combination of field data, remote sensing, modeling, and machine learning techniques in her work. Before joining DRI, she spent five years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and the EPA Research Office. In these positions, she developed, evaluated, and integrated gas- and aerosol-phase chemical mechanisms into atmospheric chemical transport models, which have been applied in studies such as assessing the impact of emission reduction policies on atmospheric chemistry. Her other research interests include the interactions between biogenic emissions, air quality, and climate change, which she explored during her PhD research at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Dr. Zare Harofteh also holds a faculty appointment with the Atmospheric Science Graduate Program at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she contributes to teaching and mentoring students.

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.

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.

Xiaoliang Wang

Dr. Wang’s overarching research theme is to understand air pollutant emissions, transformations, and impacts. Specifically, his research interests include physical and chemical characterization of aerosols, pollution source emission measurement, and aerosol instrument development.
Dr. Wang has developed several widely used aerosol instruments. He is a co-inventor of nanoparticle aerodynamic lenses for efficiently delivering particles into aerosol mass spectrometers and the TSI DustTrak DRX Aerosol Monitor for measuring size-segregated aerosol mass concentrations in real time. He led the design of the DRI Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) that has been used for characterizing gases and particles from vehicle exhaust, stack emissions, biomass burning, and biomass-derived syngas. Dr. Wang also led the design of the DRI Model 2015 Multiwavelength Thermal/Optical Carbon Analyzer that has been commercialized and used worldwide.
Dr. Wang has been studying real-world emissions from pollution sources with the goal of improving air quality management. His projects include researching dust emissions in underground coal mines, tailpipe and non-tailpipe (i.e., brake and tire wear, as well as road dust) emissions from vehicle traffic, toxic gas and particle emissions from the open burning of household solid waste in South Africa, smoke emissions from burning lithium-ion batteries and spacecraft-relevant materials, and mining fleet/industrial stack/fugitive dust emissions in the oil sands region of Canada. Recently, he participated in several projects to study the impact of visibility, air quality, and atmospheric deposition of particles generated from wildfires and prescribed burns in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Dr. Wang is an active participant in several scientific organizations. He conducts peer reviews for scientific publications and funding agencies. He served as co-chair and chair of the Instrumentation Working Group of the American Association of Aerosol Research (AAAR) annual conferences and chair of the Young Investigators Committee of the AAAR.
Dr. Wang has been granted three patents and published three book chapters and 90+ peer-reviewed journal articles. He is the recipient of the 2020 AAAR Benjamin Y. H. Liu Award that recognizes outstanding contributions to aerosol instrumentation and experimental techniques. Most recently, he received the 2021 DRI Science Medal for his outstanding scientific contributions.