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April 27, 2004
SPPC Fellowships support student weather modification, water quality studies
Graduate students studying weather modification and water quality analysis have won the Sierra Pacific Fellowship. Serena Chew, a master's candidate in the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Nevada, Reno, is using her half of the $15,000 fellowship to study storm processes and cloud seeding technology for increasing precipitation and reducing damage from hail storms. Zachary Latham, who is working on a master’s degree in hydrology at UNR, is applying his funding in a water quality modeling study of the Carson River.
The fellowship is a one-year award selected on the basis of competitive research proposals from graduate students. SPPC fellows are provided with an office at DRI and use of the Institute's computer and laboratory facilities. SPPC established the fellowship program at DRI and the Center for Environmental Science and Engineering at UNR in 1997 to enhance environmental research in Nevada’s higher education system.
Applicants for the SPPC fellowship must be a graduate student enrolling in the University of Nevada, Reno's (UNR) Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Sciences and Health, or Hydrologic Sciences graduate programs and working under the direction of a faculty member from the Desert Research Institute.
A nonprofit, statewide division of the University and Community College System of Nevada, DRI pursues a full-time program of basic and applied environmental research on a local, national, and international scale. Nearly 500 full- and part-time scientists, technicians, and support staff conduct some 150 research projects at DRI annually. More than 85 percent of DRI's annual $37 million operating budget consists of research grants and contracts obtained by its scientists. The balance is received from the state of Nevada for administrative costs.