Professional Interests

Cheryl Martin Collins is an archaeologist and GIS analyst, as well as a staff member on the Community Environmental Monitoring Program (CEMP). She works on the Cultural Resources Management Program for the Nevada National Security Site, writing reports, preparing maps, doing technical editing, creating site and architectural resource forms, and participating in field work as needed.

Cheryl is DRI’s ESRI Account Administrator and also carries out computer mapping and modeling for various scientific projects at DRI. She has developed new procedures for converting 2D geologic cross sections into 3D models and accurately representing well log data in an ArcMap environment. Cheryl is proficient in designing GIS tool models to carry out complex procedures. She formerly taught a course in using GIS for environmental management at Nevada State College.

For the CEMP, Cheryl manages an employee who keeps an inventory of equipment, packages supplies for field use, and prepares the program’s monthly mailings.

Cheryl’s archaeological experience primarily covers the nuclear testing period on the NNSS. She has also worked on archaeological projects elsewhere in southern Nevada, particularly in Nye and Lincoln counties. The focus of her academic research involved stone tool production and use by the Virgin Anasazi at Mt. Trumbull, located in far northwestern Arizona, and the exchange of obsidian between the Virgin Anasazi and other regional groups. Using X-ray fluorescence technology on obsidian artifacts recovered from Mt. Trumbull, Cheryl has identified additional trade directions beyond those which had been previously discovered through research on the exchange of shell, turquoise, and pottery through northwestern Arizona. She was invited to present her Virgin Anasazi research at a symposium during the Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in 2005 and the Great Basin Anthropological Conference in 2006. With a grant from DRI’s Lander Endowment, Cheryl also served as the PI on a project to carry out a cultural resources inventory on BLM land north of Cathedral Gorge State Park to facilitate the transfer of the northern part of the gorge to the State of Nevada.

Cheryl served five years as the president of the Archaeo-Nevada Society and was a recipient of a Nevada Historic Preservation Award in 2005. She volunteered as lead archaeologist on a project with Archaeo-Nevada to prepare artifacts excavated from the Elwood B site in Overton, NV for curation at the Lost City Museum. In addition to volunteer work related to archaeology, she also serves as an academic mentor to college students in the Foster Care 2 Success program and the NV Promise program.

3D Hydrologic Drilling Sample Video

Click here for a sample video of a 3D model – showing a hydrologic drilling operation with tunnels, wells, test locations, fault information, water locations, and stratigraphy. (Please note, this video contains no sound.)

Education

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