People

Jay Famiglietti
Director and Professor 
Earth System Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering
949.824.9434
jfamigli@uci.edu

Professor James S. Famiglietti holds a joint faculty appointment in Earth System Science and in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, where he is the Founding Director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling. His research group uses satellite remote sensing to track water availability and groundwater depletion on land, and has been working for many years towards improving hydrological prediction in regional and global weather and climate models. Before joining the faculty at UCI in 2001, Dr. Famiglietti was an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, and was the Founding Associate Director of the UT Environmental Science Institute. He is the past Chair of the Board of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI), and the past Editor-in-Chief of Geophysical Research Letters. Famiglietti is currently leading the Community Hydrologic Modeling Project (CHyMP) effort in the United States to accelerate the development of hydrological models for use in addressing international priorities related to water, food, economic, climate, and global security. In 2012 he will serve as the Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer of the Geological Society of America, when he will lecture internationally on global water cycle change and freshwater availability.

Jennifer Wilkens
Office Manager
949.824.1611
jwilkens@uci.edu

Jennifer manages the administrative functions of the Center, including Communications, Event Coordination, the submission of grant proposals, and the development of UCCHM’s graphic identity. She is also responsible for design and production of print and electronic communications, including the Center’s website and Social Media platforms. Her background includes work and study in the diverse field of design, photography, communications, and business management, both in the United States and in Germany.

Neeta Bijoor
Postdoctoral Scholar
949.824.6783
nbijoor@uci.edu

Neeta is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling. Her research interest is urban hydrology, including the fate of applied irrigation water, evapotranspiration, distinguishing transpiration losses from evaporation, and understanding the water sources of urban plants. To reduce these uncertainties for urban ecosystems in Southern California, she makes a variety of measurements including flux chamber measurements of ET, the isotopic composition of plant, soil, water and atmospheric vapor, as well as soil moisture, irrigation and runoff. Her research explores potential methods for reducing water use in urban ecosystems in response to future climate change and water scarcity.
Please click here for Neeta's website.

Stephanie Castle
Data Specialist, Education and Outreach
castles@uci.edu

Stephanie graduated from UC Irvine in June 2009 with a BS in Earth System Science which guided her towards remote sensing and hydrology. Since working for the Center, she has performed research on the GRACE mission, its processing centers and the different methods of producing hydrology products. She has also found a passion in water policy after her experience of planning two UCCHM events titled “Working Towards Sustainable Water Solutions to Support Central Valley Farmers” in August 2010 and “The Bridge: A Forum for  Exchange between Water Researchers and Environmental Decision Makers” in April 2010. Right now she is working on a new data interface for UCCHM affiliates which will enable them to easily search for hydrologic data as well as a developed water balance for California. She will start a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning in September 2011 at UC Irvine and she looks forward to learning more about water use, management, and policy.

Cédric H. David
Project Scientist
949.824.4404
chdavid@uci.edu

Cédric is interested in the terrestrial water cycle at the continental scale with particular focus on river flow within large networks. His areas of expertise include Hydrologic Modeling, High-Performance Scientific Computing, Geographic Information Systems, etc. Two overarching questions currently motivate Cédric’s research:

1. How does water flow on the land surface?
2. How can we best account for the influence humans have on surface water in current modeling approaches?

Cédric joined the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling in October 2012. Prior to that, he spent three years (2009-2012) as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Cédric holds a Master of Science in General Engineering from Ecole Centrale de Lille (2004), a Master of Science in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin (2006), and a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin (2009).
Please click here for Cédric's website.

Rachel Druffel-Rodriguez
Junior Specialist
racheldr17@gmail.com
 

Byunghyun Kim
Visiting Assistant Researcher
bh.kim@uci.edu

Hyungtae Kim
Junior Specialist
hyungtk@uci.edu
 

JT Reager
Postdoctoral Scholar
JT's website
949.824.4952
jreager@uci.edu

JT became a Postdoc at UCCHM after receiving his PhD in Earth System Science in 2012. He is working with data from NASA's GRACE mission to answer questions about global hydrology and climate, and to improve the representation of hydrological processes in global land-surface models. His work includes a gravity-based flood prediction methodology and a characterization of typical water storage behavior for the world's largest river basins.
 

Sasha Richey
Graduate Fellow
949.824.4975
arichey@uci.edu
 
Sasha Richey is a PhD student in the Hydrology & Water Resources program within Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Irvine. She is an overly proud Seattlite who received her Bachelor’s of Science in Civil & Environmental Engineering with an Environmental and Water Studies specialty at Stanford University. Sasha’s childhood in watery Seattle, with parents who also study water, sparked her interest in hydrology at an early age. Her dissertation research works to improve global estimates of water stress, with a focus on groundwater. She uses observations from the GRACE satellite mission to better quantify human water use as compared to water availability. Ultimately, Sasha is interested in the intersection of science and policy, with a goal of using her research to inform science-based sustainable groundwater management strategies. Sasha is also a member of CLEAN Education, a student group at UC Irvine that teaches climate science lessons to local K-12 schools, with a focus on global change. In her spare time, Sasha can be found biking, cooking, traveling, and trying to improve her green thumb in the community garden.

Brian Thomas
Postdoctoral Scholar
949.824.4952
bthomas@uci.edu

Brian joined the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling as a Postdoctoral Scholar in August 2012. Brian’s research interests include groundwater/surface water interactions and understanding the hydromorphologic response of hydrologic systems. His research employs storage-discharge relations and recession analysis to identify historical watershed behaviors and the incorporation of such analyses in the calibration and validation of land surface models. Brian holds a Master of Science in Hydrology from the University of New Hampshire (2004) and a PhD in Civil Engineering from Tufts University (2012).  
 

Katalyn Voss
Water Policy Fellow
katalynvoss@gmail.com

At UCCHM, Kate connects the group’s hydrological research to broader water policy and management implications. As a 2009 NSF REU fellow she developed a global groundwater scarcity index. Since then, Kate researched the political, economic, and social implications of global water trends seen by the GRACE satellite system, and completed case studies for northwest Australia, the Tigris-Euphrates River Basin, and China. In addition to her research at UCCHM, Kate conducted field work looking at the connection between the environment and development in northeast Thailand; and during Spring 2011, worked with Aqueduct, the water-risk team at World Resources Institute. She holds a BSFS in Science, Technology, and International Affairs from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.