GROUP | hydro

Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. Juan S. Acero Triana

Dr. Acero Triana completed his PhD in Ag & Bio Engineering with a concentration in Computational Science and Engineering at UIUC (US) and an MSc in Applied Hydrometeorology at RSHU (RU). He joined the Department of Environmental Sciences in 2020, where his research studies ecohydrological processes across highly managed agroecosystems and lake-watershed interactions integrating numerical models and data analytics tools. The ultimate goal of his research is to develop robust decision support systems that help decision-makers and stakeholders to assess management alternatives aimed at enhancing watershed ecosystem services under climate and land-use change scenarios.

Dr. Srishti Gaur

Dr. Gaur completed her Joint Master-PhD program at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, specializing in Land and Water Resources Engineering. Prior to joining UCR as a postdoctoral researcher, she served as a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering at the Ohio State University. At UCR, her research focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence for sustainable water, nutrient, and salinity management in the Western United States. She aims to develop hybrid models that integrate the knowledge embedded in process-based models with the flexibility and robustness of data-driven approaches. Her areas of expertise include hydrology, eco-hydrology, hydro-climatology, data science, and remote sensing.

Graduate Students

Vaishnavi Varikuti

Co-advised by Dr. Daniel Hirmas

I earned my BS degree in Agricultural Sciences from Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, India. After graduation, I was highly aspired to study abroad and thus joined South Dakota State University, Brookings to get my MS degree in Plant Sciences. As a PhD student at Texas Tech University under the supervision of Drs. Daniel Hirmas and Hoori Ajami, my research is focused on understanding the effects of interactions between roots, soil, and bedrock on the evolution of soil hydraulic properties, distribution of soil chemical and physical properties, and hydrological functioning of the critical zone.

vvarikut@ttu.edu

Eric Wineteer

As an Environmental Sciences PhD student at UC Riverside, I use remotely sensed data to constrain hydrologic models and better understand groundwater recharge. In my previous position as a consulting engineer, I developed improved statistical downscaling techniques to predict the impact of climate change on water quality, and its implications for infrastructure planning. I have extensive experience in high performance computing, particularly in parallel programming with Python. I recived my B.S. in Civil Engineering and my M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the Northeastern University.

ewineteer@gmail.com

Undergraduate Students

Alumni

Postdoctoral Fellow (2023-2024) - Co-advised by Dr. Daniel Hirmas

Now: Water Resource Scientist, Delaware River Basin Commission

Dr. Matthew Amato

Hailey Glamore-Scott

Continuing my journey at UC Riverside as an undergraduate Computer Engineering student, my research interests focus on data analysis and improving hydrologic predictions within the Colorado River Basin. I achieve this by performing exploratory data analysis using Python, and developing machine learning models.

Valerie Gonzales

BS in Environmental Sciences, Lab Assistant (2025)

Lily Caplon-Guin

Lily is an undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor's degree in Bioengineering. She is currently working in Python to analyze USGS well data to quantify groundwater dynamics in the Central Valley. She has previous research experience working in an Entomology lab studying population and community ecology of alpine freshwater habitats where she sorted and identified freshwater invertebrates. Lily hopes to pursue a career relating to research in agricultural sciences in the future.

Dr. Xinying Ling

Dr. Ling is a postdoctoral scientist at UCR and USDA-ARS Sustainable Agricultural Water Systems in Davis. She completed her PhD in Geosciences at Texas Tech University, focusing on water transport in the vadose zone and hydrological processes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. Her research interests include vadose-zone hydrology, groundwater hydrology, hydrologic modeling, and isotope geochemistry. Her current project involves implementing numerical simulations and isotope tools to understand the hydrological processes in hillslope regions and provide insights into managed aquifer recharge in California.

Co-advised by Dr. Scott Bradford and Dr. Menberu Meles

xinyingl@ucr.edu

Dr. Sakiur Rahman

Co-advised by Dr. Jirka Šimunek and Dr. Scott Bradford

Dr. Sakiur Rahman, is a postdoctoral researcher, working with Dr. Jirka Šimunek, Dr. Scott Bradford, and Dr. Hoori Ajami at the Department of Environmental Sciences, at UCR. His research is focused on developing a new computationally efficient integrated watershed simulation code. Sakiur earned his PhD from Kumamoto University and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the RIKEN Center for Computational Sciences in Japan. His research also involves applications of stochastic, data assimilation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches for modeling of hydrological processes. His focus is to create a robust, hybrid modeling framework by integrating AI, numerical models, and isotopes to enhance the understanding and forecasting of hydrological processes.

atmsakir@ucr.edu

Dr. Bing Li

Dr. Li is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside, specializing in numerical modeling of hydrologic and biogeochemical processes across field, river, and watershed scales. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, with expertise in high-performance environmental modeling tools such as HyporheicFOAM and ATS-PFLOTRAN. His research focuses on integrating hydrology, microbial biogeochemistry, and environmental fluid dynamics to understand complex Earth system interactions.

bing.li1@ucr.edu

Co-advised by Dr. Daniel Hirmas