Science Distilled: Life in Miracle Country

Featured speakers:

Kendra Atleework is the author of Miracle Country: A Memoir of a Family and a Landscape, winner of the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award and the 2021 Women Writing the West WILLA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction. Kendra received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. Her writing has appeared in Best American Essays, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Los Angeles Times, and she is the recipient of the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. She now lives in her hometown of Bishop, California.

Mary Cablk, PhD has been faculty at DRI since 1999. She is a remote sensing scientist with expertise in canine detection and image analysis. For twenty years she has been collecting data using detection dogs, and simultaneously studying their capabilities outside of laboratory conditions. This led her to learn about humans and human perception, as the relationship between handler and dog adds complexity to research. She pioneers methods to reduce the complexity inherent in using dog-handler teams, to be able to document the capability of detection dogs. A Navy brat, she grew roots upon landing in the American West, where the vast landscapes provided a nexus for study, adventure, and fed her passion for the outdoors. She cannot imagine living anywhere else.

Jesse Juchtzer was born and raised as a fifth-generation Nevadan originating from the Carson Valley, Nevada. His Angelo-Germanic family immigrated to Genoa, Nevada in the early 1800’s following the appearance of Halley’s Comet in the night sky as a sign of change and have never had the desire to leave these snow crested Sierras. In 2013, he joined DRI, and over the past eight years, has worked his way to the position of Principal Research Technician within the Division of Atmospheric Science. Currently he assists with the enhancement of our community’s water resources by using scientifically proven cloud seeding technologies during specific winter storm conditions to increase ice nucleus generation and boost snowpack reserves within targeted mountaintop watersheds to extend the spring runoff.