This summer, DRI brought eighteen students from Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) to our Reno campus for a paid, immersive research experience. Over the course of the ten week program, students worked under the mentorship of DRI faculty members to learn about the process of using scientific research to solve real-world problems. This unique internship program welcomes all students, not only those pursuing majors in science.
DRI’s Monica Arienzo, Director of the Microplastics and Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, was recently awarded $250,000 by the Department of Defense to investigate laundering and textile degradation as a possible source of PFAS and microplastic pollution. The one-year grant will fund laboratory studies and analysis led by Arienzo, with DRI’s Daniel Saftner and Yeongkwon Son contributing to the work. Matt Reeves of Western Michigan University is partnering with the DRI scientists for the project.
The $100,000 grant will fund the production of additional educational kits known as Greenboxes that raise awareness and understanding of the prevalence and role of microplastics in the environment. In addition to the Greenboxes, the grant will also support community partnerships with The Nature Conservancy, the Walker Basin Conservancy, Get Outdoors Nevada, Sierra Nevada Journeys, and Envirolution.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the selection DRI to receive a competitive grant for environmental education in Nevada. This organization has been chosen for its exceptional work in promoting youth ecological stewardship and environmental education, with the grant supporting a project to mitigate microplastics in Nevada waterways.
New research explores the microbial communities that live on plastic waste and how they impact the 2nd most biodiverse river in the world. DRI researchers Monica Arienzo and Rachel Kozloski are co-authors on this new study that examines the ecological impacts of plastic waste in Cambodia’s Mekong River.
U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto visited DRI for a tour of their upgraded facilities to highlight over $9.2 million in investments she secured through recently passed bipartisan legislation to support DRI’s critical research projects that are helping grow Nevada’s clean energy economy, protect the environment, and preparing students for careers in STEM fields.
Scientists teamed up with nonprofit Clean Up the Lake to collect and analyze litter found on the bottom of Lake Tahoe. In one of the first studies to utilize scuba divers to collect litter from a lakebed, 673 plastic items were counted from just a small fraction of the lake.