Paul Bates, University of Bristol

Title: Global flood inundation models: simulating 2D hydrodynamics at 30m resolution for the entire planet.

Dr. Paul Bates is Professor of Hydrology at the University of Bristol where he specializes in the science of flooding.  He develops new numerical solutions to the Shallow Water equations and combines these with satellite and airborne data to advance our fundamental understanding of flood dynamics and reduce threats to life and economic losses worldwide.  His work is used by multiple researchers, NGOs, multi-national companies and insurers to manage flood hazard and risk.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and of the American Geophysical Union, a double winner of the Lloyd’s of London Science of Risk prize and in 2019 was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to flood risk management.

Jenny Druhan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Title: Adapting reactive transport frameworks to describe critical zone structure and function.

Dr. Jenny Druhan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geology, at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She got her B.S. from the University of North Carolina, M.S. from the University of Arizona, and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Her interests center around the ability to identify the underlying processes contributing to chemical variability during reactive transport through porous media using measurements and modeling of associated stable isotope fractionations. Her recent work has involved integrating stable isotope systems in numerical models of reactive flow and transport for a variety of field and laboratory experiments. These studies demonstrate the scope of processes that can be identified by considering the coupling and distinctions between chemical and isotopic variability during subsurface reactive transport.

Sarah Gasda, Norwegian Research Center AS & the University of Bergen

Title: 25 years of modeling and simulation of geological CO2 storage: learnings and way forward.

Dr. Sarah E. Gasda is Research Director and Chief Scientist in Computational Geosciences at NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, an independent research institute in Bergen, Norway. Dr. Gasda also holds a joint appointment as professor in Physics and Technology at the University of Bergen. She currently leads the Centre for Sustainable Subsurface Resources (CSSR), a national research center dedicated to providing new subsurface knowledge and digital solutions to drastically reduce Norway’s offshore emissions. Dr. Gasda has research expertise in computational methods and modeling of multiphase flow in porous media with a particular focus on solving engineering challenges in geological CO2 storage. She has contributed to improved simulation of long-term migration and trapping, leakage from legacy wells and faults, and pressure impacts of large-scale storage at the basin scale. Dr. Gasda holds a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2008.

Kaiyu Guan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Title: Resolving sub-field hydrology: tile drainage, soil biogeochemistry, and crop productivity

Dr. Kaiyu Guan is a Blue Waters Professor and the Founding Director of Agroecosystem Sustainability Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Guan is also the Chief Scientist for the NASA Acres Consortium. He got his PhD at Princeton University and was a postdoc fellow at Stanford University before he joined UIUC in 2016. His research group uses computational models, satellite data, field work, and Artificial Intelligence to address how climate and human practices affect crop productivity, water resource availability, and ecosystem functioning. Guan’s group aims to increase our society’s resilience and adaptability to maintain sustainability of ecosystem services, food security, and water resources. Guan has published 150+ papers in leading scientific journals. Guan leads multiple major federal grants from NASA, NSF, DOE, and USDA. Guan is the awardee of AGU James Macelwane Medal, AGU Fellow, NSF CAREER Award, NASA New Investigator Award, AGU Early Career Award in Global Environmental Change, and FoodShot Global GroundBreaker Prize.

Amilcare Porporato, Princeton University

Title: Self-similarity and vanishing diffusion in fluvial landscapes: theoretical and numerical challenges

Dr. Amilcare Porporato is the Thomas J Wu ’94 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University. His research and teaching regard nonlinear and stochastic dynamical systems, hydrometeorology, ecohydrology, and environmental thermodynamics, with applications to sustainable use of soil and water resources, natural climate solutions, and sustainable energy transition.

Porporato has been the Editor of Water Resources Research and Hydrological Processes and is a member of the editorial board of Entropy, Advances in Water Resources, and the Hydrologic Science Journal. Porporato is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, several publications presented at national and international conferences and invited talks. He is co-author of the book “Ecohydrology of Water-controlled Ecosystems” (Cambridge UP, 2004), Ecohydrology: Dynamics of Life and Water in the Critical Zone (Cambridge UP, 2022) and edited the book “Dryland Ecohydrology” (Springer, 2005).

Porporato received the Parisatti International Prize, the first Landolt & Cie Visiting Chair in “Innovative Strategies for a Sustainable Future” at EPFL, the Outstanding Civil Engineering Faculty Award, Borland lecture at the Hydrology Days, the AGU Hydrological Sciences Award, and the Dalton Medal (EGU). He is an elected fellow of AGU and a WOS highly cited researcher.

Maša Prodanović, The University of Texas at Austin

Title: Direct modeling of foam transport in porous and fractured media.

Dr. Maša Prodanović is Frank W. Jessen Professor and Associate Department Chair in Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin. She is an applied mathematician-turned-engineer with expertise in direct simulation of flow and particulate transport in porous and fractured media, porous media characterization especially based on 2D and 3D images of rock microstructure, unconventional resources, and data curation. She is a recipient of multiple awards such as InterPore Medal for Porous Media Research in 2022, SPE Distinguished Member Award in 2021, EAGE Alfred Wegener Award in 2021, SPE Formation Evaluation regional award for development of Digital Rocks Portal in 2019, Texas 10 (top faculty) and Stony Brook 40 Under Forty awards in 2017, SPE Faculty Innovative Teaching Award in 2014 and Interpore Procter & Gamble Research Award for Porous Media Research in 2014. She was elected Interpore Society Council member, SIAM Geosciences Program Director 2021-22,  SIAM Geosciences Chair 2023-24, and Gordon Conference on Flow and Transport in Permeable Media Vice Chair 2022-24, among others.

Charu Varadharajan, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Title: Using Machine Learning Models for Predictions in Unmonitored Basins.

Dr. Charu Varadharajan is a computational Earth scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and has dedicated her career to water sustainability and resilience. Her research focuses on developing innovative data-centric solutions for water-energy applications. She has experience working on a broad range of topics including surface and groundwater quality, water resource resilience to human and natural disturbances, methane cycling, environmental impacts of carbon sequestration and fossil fuel production, and bioremediation. She also leads the Earth AI and data program at LBNL and her research group develops data science capabilities – from machine learning and statistical algorithms, to data management and integration services – for environmental applications. She was awarded a DOE Early Career Research Award in 2019 to build a data-driven framework to predict the impacts of floods and droughts on water quality in the United States.

Josh White, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Title: Computational geomechanics for a sustainable energy future.

Dr. Joshua White is a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  His research focuses on integrating large-scale computing with geophysical monitoring to improve our understanding of complex geologic systems. Applications of interest include geologic carbon storage, underground hydrogen storage, and climate resilience.  He holds a B.S.E. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University.  He joined LLNL in 2009 as a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow, and currently serves as Deputy Division Leader for Science and Technology in the Atmospheric, Earth, and Energy Division.