Recent Accomplishments
April 2008
- Carole Eddington successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled Comparing Values for a Private Environmental Good, Xeriscape: Hedonic Price Method versus Contingent Valuation Method. Helen Neill (Associate Professor) chaired her committee.
- Tara Pike (BA, 1997 and Director of Rebel Recycling) was featured in the TLC Channel's How Not to Dress, in an episode that first aired on April 18.
- William J. Smith, Jr. (Assistant Professor) and David M. Hassenzahl (Chair) attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers. Smith presented two papers, and chaired the meeting of the Water Resources Specialty Group. Hassenzahl served on a panel discussing the role of science in multiple stakeholder processes, and gave a guest lecture at the Boston University School of Public Health
- Tara Pike (BA, 1997 and Director of Rebel Recycling) was a major focus of the April 2008 issue of Las Vegas Life Magazine, which focused on sustainability in Las Vegas. David M. Hassenzahl (Chair) was also quoted in the issue.
- Ilene Ruhoy (Doctoral Candidate) participated in a session on Pharmaceutical Waste: Concerns at the State at the Medical Waste Institute s WasteExpo 2008 in Chicago, IL
- David M. Hassenzahl (Chair) traveled to Ireland to serve as External Reviewer for the Chair in Environment and Occupational Health at the University College of Dublin
- Graduate students Heather Skaza and Jennifer Ward participated in a round table on environmental issues with a group of Rotary Club young professionals visiting from Australia.
- Helen Neill (Associate Professor) expanded her Nevada Test Site research to include development of outreach materials for grades K - 12. This research is supported by funding from the US Department of Energy.
March 2008
- Tim Farnham (Assistant Professor) won the Greenspun College Research Award, and Krystyna Stave (Associate Professor) the Greenspun College Service Award.
- Dr. William James Smith, Jr. was an invited panelist at the Southwestern Social Science Association annual meeting in Las Vegas, speaking on the politics of water in Las Vegas.
- Helen Neill (Associate Professor) distributed a questionnaire designed to obtain feedback from the rural community, as part of her ongoing efforts to support environmental management efforts at the Nevada Test Site.
- Helen Neill participated in a Nevada Test Site Community Advisory Board Meeting in Beatty, NV. The highlight of the meeting was a presentation by one of the NTS CAB members who summarized a technical report that Neill coordinated to provide three well site recommendations between Pahute Mesa and Beatty. The Pahute and Western Pahute Mesa region of the Nevada Test Site is the location of 82 underground nuclear tests that contain 61 % of the total radionuclide inventory for the entire NTS.
February 2008
- Krystyna Stave (Associate Professor), led a team of 8 current and former students to California to facilitate the City of Los Angeles’ Zero Waste planning meeting
- Dr. William James Smith, Jr. was a writer, editor and advisory board member for the Manual on the Right to Water and Sanitation, a tool to assist policy makers and practitioners develop strategies for implementing the human right to water and sanitation. It was produced with the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science and Human Rights Programme, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, the Right to Water Programme, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), Water, Sanitation and Infrastructure Branch. Available at http://www.cohre.org/manualrtws
- The UNLV Sustainability Task force was the lead story in Inside UNLV
- David M. Hassenzahl (Chair) gave an invited lecture on “Las Vegas as the Sustainability Everytown” at the Annual Conference of the Texas Community College Teachers Association in Dallas, Texas.
January 2008
- The Department of Environmental Studies was a major sponsor of UNLV’s Focus the Nation activities the week of January 28 – 31. Events included an appearance by Melissa Mezger on KNPR’s State of Nevada, a screening of the movie The 11th Hour, a day of lectures and presentations, and two days of teach-ins by faculty throughout UNLV. Three Faculty members served on panels: Helen Neill (Associate Professor) discussed the economics of Solar Power, Krystyna Stave (Associate Professor) discussed environment and systems, and David M. Hassenzahl (Chair) discussed the tradeoffs among mitigation, adaptation, and suffering.
- Environment (sixth edition), by Peter Raven, Linda Berg, and ENV Department Chair David M. Hassenzahl, was published by Wiley and Sons. This book is used around the world for introductory environmental science courses.
- Several members of the Department participated in the 2008 National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment in Washington DC. Tricia Mynster (MS, 2005 and Visiting Instructor), Nick Grenier (MS Candidate) and David M. Hassenzahl (Department Chair) ran a half-day workshop on Teaching Climate Change to Undergraduates. Hassenzahl also coordinated a half-day breakout session on the relationship between climate change management and nuclear power. William J. Smith, Jr. also attended, as did Tom Piechota of the UNLV Urban Sustainability Initiative.