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. Sandra Armengol Vall

I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California Riverside. My research is aimed at gaining knowledge and understanding in the use of chemical and isotopic tracers in hydrogeology. My main areas of expertise include the use of conventional chemical techniques, geochemical modelling and geostatistics to identify the groundwater provenance in aquifers and to study water-soil interactions including salinization processes.

I have five years of experience in analyzing groundwater chemistry and collecting rainwater samples. I worked in groundwater related issues in Spain (Onyar River Basin, Llobregat River Basin) and North (Iberá Estuary) and Central (Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin) Argentina. I have planned and conducted many surveys, including building a rainwater monitoring network for a 2300 km2 basin.

Dr. Lin Chen

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

Lin Chen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Environmental Sciences, working with Dr. Jirka Šimunek, Dr. Scott Bradford, and Dr. Hoori Ajami. Lin’s post-doc research is to develop a watershed scale model to simulate the coupling of water flow and contaminant transport in surface water, vadose zone, and groundwater. Lin completed his PhD at the University of Montreal, where he utilized a combination of field work and numerical modeling to quantify the surface energy components for different land cover types and to investigate impacts of subsurface water flow on the thermal stability of roads and highways built on permafrost.

Dr. Julio César Pachón Maldonado

Co-advised by Dr. Daniel Hirmas

Julio completed his B.S. in Science of Natural & Environmental Systems at Cornell University in 2014, worked with an NGO in tanzania for a year, and finally earned a Ph.D. at the University of Florida in 2021 in Soil and Water Sciences with Dr. Allan Bacon studying soil microaggregation across wide spatial areas in the U.S. and Africa. Julio's continuous goal is to improve long term management of natural resources by enhancing our understanding of the development of soil structure and its impacts on biogeochemical cycles. Currently, as a Postdoctoral Scholar with Dr. Hoori Ajami and Dr. Daniel Hirmas, Julio is working towards improving our understanding of bedrock driven processes on developing preferential flow paths.

Dr. Yusen Yuan

Yusen Yuan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California Riverside. His research expertise is in eco-hydrology and isotope geochemistry. In his previous work, Yusen set up and optimized two isotope-based eco-hydrology models. Currently, Yusen is working on quantifying evapotranspiration processes in agricultural ecosystems of Central Valley using a combination of water 18O/2H isotopes and numerical modeling. The goal of his research is to better understand plant water use and groundwater recharge processes in agricultural ecosystems of Central Valley.

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

William Scott Burgess

Major: Mathematics, University of California Riverside

Research: As a Digital Agricultural Fellow, I am working with Dr. Hoori Ajami and Dr. Adam Schreiner-McGraw to design computational methods for determining groundwater response to precipitation droughts. I plan to pursue a career in agricultural technology, or technology as it relates to natural resources more broadly; specifically, I am interested in the intersection of these emerging fields and the financial sector.