Dawn Reynoso's career path was buried ages ago. Literally.

While working as a UNLV student researcher, Reynoso surveyed and excavated a fossil-rich area on the north end of the Las Vegas Valley. That land became Nevada's newest state park Ice Age Fossils State Park, and Reynosa was hired to help design and open it. Now she's a park interpreter and part of the team developing its science education programs.

But, it was through her time in the geoscience department that she uncovered a career that played to all her strengths.

Opening up new ideas for a career

Reynoso always loved being outdoors, but having little exposure to career possibilities as a kid she didn't think of it as a career. Reynoso entered college with her sights set on teaching. After subbing in a kindergarten classroom for one day and experiencing the exhaustion that came with it, she reevaluated just what teaching, for her, would entail.

With a switch to potentially teaching science she began taking the core sciences courses required and landed on something that clicked.

The geoscience department fit her love of nature and the outdoors, and she found the department and faculty welcoming and approachable. She started asking faculty about their projects, and in 2011, volunteered on a project surveying land and excavating some fossils at what would eventually become Ice Age Fossils State Park.

Having always had an interest in paleontology, her time volunteering helped to build her knowledge base and confidence. It also brought a heightened awareness to the area that was, at the time, gaining the attention of state congress people and, eventually, the governor.

“That work was essential to the state and the concerned public to understand the significance of this place and what we actually had here,” said park supervisor Garrett Fehner. “It directly led to the proclamation of it to become a state park in 2017. Having our local university involved and able to do the fieldwork and publish about the findings was huge for us.”

So, after Reynoso graduated with her master’s in 2014 with an emphasis in paleontology and geochronology, she decided her future could lie in working with the park she had developed an intimate knowledge of. 

Having the land designated as a national monument "meant there was attention here, and there were now jobs here," she said. "I kept my eyes open because I have a love for this place, and I felt like I absolutely could do something with parks.”

Focus on a new state park

Everything fell into place in 2017 as then Gov. Brian Sandoval had proclaimed the area to be a state park as part of his “Explore Your Nevada Initiative.”

Fehner was hired and tasked with designing and building out the park, and he knew he would need to bring someone else on to help him. In November 2018, Reynoso accepted the role as their first park interpreter.

“We needed someone that really understood this resource intimately and was comfortable talking about the geology and paleontology,” Fehner said. “I knew quickly during interviews she was the right person.” 

From there, began a multi-year process to bring the park to a point where it could open for the public. It started with cleaning up the land, which was neglected and abused for decades. People had used the area as a dumping ground and for riding dirt bikes and ATVs. They had to figure out a way to turn it into a place the public could observe and appreciate while also protecting these sensitive resources.

Reynoso spent countless hours pouring her knowledge of the area into creating interpretive signs for their guided trails, and working with outside design teams to create a landscape wall for the visitors’ center gallery depicting what the Las Vegas Valley could have looked like during the ice age. She also worked with designers to create all of the sculptures on their megafauna trail to have representation of some of the large mammals living at the time.

“She made paleontological discoveries here as a student, and applied that experience into turning the area into a state park. It’s an incredible story,” Fehner said. “She’s really good at taking her understanding of earth sciences and phrasing it in a way that communicates the significance of this area to the public. That was really the point of this park: to bring this site to life for people.” 

The building housing the visitors’ center, gallery, and offices for staff was complete in 2021, but the COVID pandemic delayed progress to opening. Fehner and Reynoso continued with their work, even piecing together extra funding to get things over the finish line in the end. The park finally opened to the public this past January.

The team consists of seven staff members. Within their first six months, they organized teacher workshops, had their first school group visits, and started a Reading with a Ranger program. Reynoso is currently working with the park’s other park interpreter to continue developing curriculum for use with school groups in the upcoming year. 

“Seeing people enjoy it is the best part of all of this,” Reynoso said. “It’s nice to finally be interacting with the public. Seeing kids on the trails, seeing people in the gallery space in the visitors’ center. Having our first school group come out, seeing the buses arrive got me choked up. It feels like we finally made it, we’ve succeeded.”

Plans for further success

Reynoso believes the park has even more potential (and dreams of a donor visiting and seeing that potential, too). 

Expansions could include an addition to the visitors’ center to have space for more exhibits, an onsite lab and repository, and classroom space. She wants to add a Junior Ranger program and has school break or summer camps in mind, too.

“UNLV should be really proud to have someone like Dawn in their alumni population,” Fehner said. “She took her experience from UNLV and was able to translate it into something so unique in creating a new state park.”