Members of the University community work to mitigate wildfire risk The 2020 wildfire season was one of the most devastating on record for California and the U.S. as a whole, based on data from the National Interagency Fire Center. By the end of November 2020, there had been more than 50,000 wildfires that burned more than 8 million acres, with nearly half that acreage burning in California. The West was most significantly impacted by these fires, and people from Washington to Nevada to...

Honoring faculty through awards and fellowships Vice President for Research and Innovation, Mridul Gautam, celebrates the 2024 research award recipients. The annual Research & Innovation Awards Reception was held in the Great Room of the Joe Crowley Student Union May 15, 2024. Research & Innovation recognizes faculty and rewards creativity, productivity and innovative research endeavors. "I would like to thank you all for what you do for the University of Nevada and beyond," Mridul Gautam,...

Smoke from the Lava Fire behind Castle Lake in 2021. (Credit: Erin Suenaga) Wildfires have been big news the last couple of years. Australia’s wildfires in 2019 and 2020 and the Amazon rainforest fires in 2021 made headlines around the world. The American west has had record-breaking burns in recent years, blanketing cities in dangerous amounts of smoke and sending haze across the continent to the east coast. While smoke has clear and apparent effects on the sky, new research finds it changed...