news release  September 23 , 2005

Contacts: Heather Emmons, DRI PIO, heather.emmons@dri.edu, Reno (775) 673-7313 (w), (702) 743-3435 (c)
All DRI News Releases and higher resolution map available at: http://news.dri.edu/

DRI awards Maki Fellowship to Feng Pan

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Feng Pan, a graduate student in the Water Resources Management Program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, has been awarded DRI's Aileen and Sulo Maki Hydrology/Hydrogeology Fellowship.  The competitively selected fellowship includes a three-year award of $18,000 per year to an incoming Ph.D. student at UNR or UNLV pursuing research in a field related to hydrologic sciences.

Pan's fellowship will allow him to continue his research interests in numerical modeling in watershed hydrology and surface water hydrology, as well as groundwater flow and transport in the unsaturated zone.  He said for his fellowship he would like to combine surface and groundwater hydrology with other subjects, like soil hydrology, water geochemistry, computer science, geographical information systems and ecology.

The fellowship was established by Aileen and Sulo Maki, long-time DRI supporters who were prominent real estate investors in the Las Vegas area in the 1960s and 70s.  Pan received his M.S. in Water Resources Management from UNLV in August and a B.S. in Hydrology and Water Resources from Sichuan University in China.

ABOUT DRI: A nonprofit, statewide division of the Nevada System of Higher Education, 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 more than 300 research projects at DRI annually.  DRI generates $45 million in total revenue consisting predominately of competitively won research contracts and grants. The State of Nevada provides critical funding in support of DRI's administration, operations and maintenance, through the Nevada System of Higher Education's budget. While DRI’s portion of the NSHE budget is less than 1 percent, the institute leverages these funds to enhance its competitiveness.