Jill Frankforter selected as Nevada Water Science Center Director

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We have a new Water Science Center director: Jill Frankforter!  You may remember from early 2019, Jill was our acting Director for several months during the initial center director recruitment process.  We must have made a good impression, because she’s now officially a Nevadan. 

What road lead Jill to Nevada? Well, she started with the USGS’s Nebraska Water Science Center in 1990 while attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Jill earned a Bachelor of Science in biology (1992) and a Master of Science in Natural Resources-Aquatic Ecology (2005), all the while using her background in water quality and stream ecology as the lead ecologist on the Central Nebraska Basin’s National Water-Quality Program study area.

In 2010, Jill moved to the Wyoming-Montana WSC where she was the Water-Quality Unit Chief and Water-Quality Specialist.  Under her direction, the water-quality program expanded into new areas of study with projects using surrogates to estimate sediment loads and DNA techniques to help improve our understandings of microbial communities influences of on surface-water and groundwater quality.  This led to a new DNA research lab in Montana. Jill was promoted to Deputy Director of the Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center in 2015 and most recently doubled as the Acting Director of the Nebraska Water Science Center.

We look forward to having Jill’s leadership as we venture forward with providing reliable, unbiased scientific information and research about Nevada’s water resources.  Welcome aboard, Jill!