FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 29, 2008                                 

Danyal Petersen receives DRI’s Colin Warden Award
UNR Doctoral student in Atmospheric Sciences and Physics earns prize

RENO - Danyal Petersen, a University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) graduate student, has been awarded the 2008 Colin Warden Award from the Desert Research Institute.

“Dan has been working on lightning simulation at the Nevada Terawatt Facility since 2003 with Matt Bailey, a faculty member for both UNR and DRI,” said Stephen Wells, DRI President. “Dan’s research to learn how lightening works and how to divert is fascinating, important and challenging.”

The Colin Warden Memorial Endowment makes an annual award of approximately $1,500 to a graduate student at UNR or the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Applicants must be involved with a DRI research project or have a DRI faculty member direct their graduate research. They must also be students in good standing and Nevada residents for at least one semester. Applicants must submit a research paper based on original research related to the identification and or resolution of an environmental problem.

The endowment was established by the family and friends of Colin Warden after his death in 1991. Maureen Warden presented a check and the award to Petersen on Monday, April 28 following his lecture titled “Brief Review of the Problem of Lightning Initiation and a Hypothesis of Initial Lightning Leader Formation.” Mrs. Warden said the endowment was started to honor her husband’s longstanding commitment to the environment. He was an electrician at Washoe Medical Center at the time of his death.

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Photo caption: Left to right, faculty adviser Matt Bailey, Maureen Warden, Danyal Petersen and DRI Vice President Roger Jacobson.

Note to Reporters and Editors: DRI, the nonprofit research campus of the Nevada System of Higher Education, strives to be the world leader in environmental sciences through the application of knowledge and technologies to improve people’s lives throughout Nevada and the world.