The National Drought Mitigation Center congratulates Claire Shirle and Jake Petr on completion of their honors theses and Undergraduate Creative Activity and Research at UNL (UCARE) projects in spring 2016. From left, the students and their project advisors are Deborah Bathke, NDMC climatologist; Jake Petr, Meteorology, Climatology and Global Studies major; Claire Schirle, Meteorology, Climatology and Mathematics major; and Tsegaye Tadesse, NDMC climatologist. Schirle’s topic was “A Comparison of the Vegetative Response Index and Vapor Pressure Deficit for Monitoring Drought in California,” and Petr’s was “Assessing Climate Change Impacts in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) Using the Community Capitals Framework (CCF).”