The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is the nonprofit research campus of the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), the organization that oversees all publicly supported higher education in the U.S. state of Nevada. At DRI, approximately 500 research faculty and support staff engage in more than $50 million in environmental research each year. DRI's environmental research programs are divided into three core divisions (Atmospheric Sciences, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, and Hydrologic Sciences) and two interdisciplinary centers (Center for Arid Lands Environmental Management and the Center for Watersheds and Environmental Sustainability). Established in 1988 and sponsored by AT&T, the institute's Nevada Medal awards "outstanding achievement in science and engineering".