Jacque Ewing-Taylor

As the Institutional Grants Coordinator, Jacque Ewing-Taylor brings together interdisciplinary research teams to respond to high-profile grant Requests For Proposal (RFPs) and coordinates the support for proposal review.

Ewing-Taylor also holds the position of associate director of the Raggio Research Center for STEM Education. The Raggio Center is focused on the educational aspects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) such as professional development for educators and improving instruction for students.

A major function of the center is supporting the evaluation portion of the grant process and this correlates to Ewing-Taylor’s primary research interest—studying professional development strategies that best increase teacher effectiveness. Ewing-Taylor points out that, “kids are natural scientists” and she is focused on finding the best ways to develop those tendencies.

Peter Weisberg

Dr. Weisberg is interested in the causes and consequences of landscape change, including natural disturbances, effects of anthropogenic land use, ungulate-landscape interactions, and invasive species.  His research often considers past landscape change as a guide to understanding present and future condition, and integrates field studies, GIS, remote sensing and simulation modeling.  Ongoing research projects within his lab group address disturbance ecology, woodland expansion, post-fire succession, and ecological restoration in Great Basin pinyon-juniper woodlands; fire history and ecology of mountain big sagebrush communities; fire ecology of the Sierra Nevada (Lake Tahoe Basin); and the ecology of tamarisk invasions along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon.

Charles Coronella

Waste to energy conversion, biomass pre-treatment for bioenergy, applications of fluidization and chemical looping combustion.

Brian Frost

The Frost group is interested in the development of new inorganic and organometallic complexes for use in aqueous and biphasic catalysis. Organometallic chemistry and catalysis remain exciting areas of research with many opportunities for fundamental, not to mention pedagogical, contributions. We are interested in the synthesis, structure, and reactivity of inorganic and organometallic complexes with emphasis on those applicable to catalysis. Techniques utilized in our laboratory include, but are not limited to, computational chemistry, multinuclear NMR spectroscopy (1H, 13C, 31P), UV-vis spectroscopy, mass specrometry, X-ray crystallography, and in situ IR using ASI’s ReactIR 4000.TM

Benjamin King

Lead research in organic chemistry, advanced materials, polymers, and organic semiconductors.

Sudeep Chandra

Dr. Sudeep Chandra is an Associate Professor, Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno.  His laboratory conducts limnological studies related to the restoration or conservation of aquatic ecosystems. His projects include recovering native species, managing nonnative species, understanding the affects of land use change (mining, urbanization, etc) on water quality, and developing natural resource management & conservation plans for the world’s largest, freshwater fishes. We recognize that science is critical in developing longer-term, sustainable public policy.

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.

Elizabeth Leger

Dr. Leger is interested in the population biology of plants. She works on local adaptation and rapid evolution of native and invasive plants, and is interested in how genetic variation (below the species level) affects the distribution and abundance of species. She also works on the rapid evolution of adaptive traits, and is currently interested in how native species can respond to environmental perturbations such as species invasion and climate change.

In addition to her work on plant population biology, she does projects that gather basic ecological data about rare species and natural communities, providing information that is necessary to make appropriate management and restoration decisions.

Eric Marchand

Dr. Marchand’s research interests:  Optimizing biological processes for the treatment of water and wastewater; development and testing of membrane bioreactor technology; novel water reuse strategies; bioremediation of acid mine drainage; microbial ecology in natural and engineered systems; and biogeochemical reactions in the environment.