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Pat Mulroy's next office? In a water think tank

Pat Mulroy has announced her next move, and it’s not in real estate development or politics, as her career trajectory led some to predict. The former general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority has accepted a dual role with UNLV’s Brookings Mountain West, where she’ll spend 60 percent of her time, and the Desert Research Institute, where she’ll spend the other 40 percent.

Mulroy will concentrate on water policy development and research, an area in which she gained deep expertise during her quarter-century at the Water Authority. Both DRI and UNLV are partners in a Governor’s Office of Economic Development project to create a Nevada Center of Excellence in hydrologic sciences. At DRI, Mulroy will hold the Maki Distinguished Faculty Associate position, leading a water resources and technology program, which will feed into the Center of Excellence. At Brookings Mountain West, she'll be a senior fellow for climate adaptation and environmental policy, focusing on challenges that the Southwest U.S. is facing. She'll also be a senior fellow in Brookings' Washington, D.C.-based Metropolitan Policy Program, contributing her expertise to national policy-making.

Desert Companion welcomed Heidi Kyser as staff writer in January 2014. In 2018, she was promoted to senior writer and producer, working for both DC and KNPR's State of Nevada. She produced KNPR’s first podcast, the Edward R. Murrow Regional Award-winning Native Nevada, in 2020. The following year, she returned her focus full-time to Desert Companion, becoming Deputy Editor, which meant she was next in line to take over when longtime editor Andrew Kiraly left in July 2022. In 2024, Interim CEO Favian Perez promoted Heidi to managing editor, charged with integrating the Desert Companion and State of Nevada newsroom operations.