We INTEGRATE hydroLOGY, ecologY, and ENGINEERING TO STUDY WICKED PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS IN watersheds around the globe. To that end, we combine hydro-ecological observations with mathematical models, Geographical Information Systems, and remote sensing technology.

Who are we?

Based in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida, we are a group of engineers and scientists interested in watershed sustainability solutions

Principal Investigator

Mauricio E. Arias, PhD, PE

Growing up in the Colombian Andes, Mauricio thought he was going to be an anthropologist. Moving to Florida as a teenager opened his eyes to the world of ecology and engineering, and he has been navigating through those disciplines in his research in (sub-) tropical watersheds. After completing a BS and a ME in Environmental Engineering from Univ. of Florida, Mauricio moved to New Zealand to do his PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Canterbury. He returned to the US in 2014 for a postdoc in Sustainability Science at Harvard, before arriving to USF in Fall of 2016.

POSTDOCS

Osama M. Tarabih, PhD

Osama is interested in hydrology, hydropower, ecology, and the ecological responses of altered hydrology. Osama completed his PhD at USF in December of 2022. Prior to joining USF in Spring of 2018, Osama was a Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Irrigation and Hydraulics, Engineering College, Cairo University. Osama has a BS in civil engineering at Cairo University where he worked as a T.A. until he obtained his Master Degree there in hydrology and water resources engineering at the same institution.

Hung Nguyen, PhD

Hung grew up in Pleiku, a small city in the highland of Vietnam, before completing his B.S. in mechanical engineering at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (Bach Khoa). After five years working as a mechanical engineer for Jetstar Pacific Airlines and Intel Products Vietnam, he found his interest in using data for process improvement and decided to pursue higher degrees in industrial engineering. Hung joined the University of South Florida in 2015 and completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in industrial engineering. His research interests and experiences include data analytics and system reliability, condition-based monitoring and health management, and decision-making modeling using Markov Decision Processes.

phd students

Jess Boyer, MS (PhD in Environmental Engineering, expected in Spring 2025)

Jess grew up in Pennsylvania before completing her B.S. in Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. At Maryland, she grew interested in the intersection between environmental health, human health, and public policy as it relates to water contaminant remediation. Because of these interests, she decided to join the University of South Florida as an Environmental Engineering PhD student in the fall of 2021. Jess is a recipient of the USF Doctoral Presidential Fellowship.

Megan Kramer, MS (PhD in Environmental Engineering expected in Spring 2025)

Megan is from Washington State, where she completed her BS in Civil Engineering from Gonzaga University in 2018. Following her undergraduate studies, she served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania, teaching secondary school mathematics. Her experiences abroad inspired her to pursue graduate studies in international development and coastal sustainability, and so she joined the University of South Florida as a PhD student in the fall of 2020. She is currently investigating research opportunities in coral reef restoration and ecosystem – based coastal defense. Megan is a NSF-NRT STRONG Coasts Fellow.

Cody Stewart, MS (PhD in Civil Engineering expected in Spring 2024)

Cody’s work is on stormwater infrastructure, more specifically the evaluation baffle box and wet detention pond performance across the city of Tampa. He earned his M.S. in environmental horticulture with a minor in soil and water science from the University of Florida in 2018. His research at UF focused on the impact of nursery production practices on herbicide efficacy. Cody earned his B.S. in biology with a focus in ecology, conservation, and environmental biology with a minor in regional planning from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2016. As a McNair Scholar, Cody conducted undergraduate research on green roofs, where he evaluated the germination and survival of native Pennsylvania plants in a green roof setting.

Sajad Soleymani Hasani, MS (PhD Civil Engineering-Water Resources expected in 2026)

To fulfill his long-standing love for nature and inspired by the degradation of Lake Urmia – one of the biggest salt lakes in the world – due to persisting droughts caused by global climate change and unsustainable management and consumption, Sajad joined the University of South Florida to pursue his Ph.D. in Water Resources aiming to play his part in the preservation of globally threatened water resources. Sajad’s research interests are hydrology, water quality modeling, and the application of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models in hydrology. Currently, he is a part of a research project focusing on predicting and managing harmful algal blooms in the St. Lucie Estuary and Watershed – the estuary connecting Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic Ocean.

Sophea Rom Phy, MS (PhD in Civil Engineering - Water Resources expected in 2027)

Phearom grew up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he completed his Engineer’s Degree in Water Resources Engineering at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia in 2021. He went on to earn a MS in the same major at Kyoto University, Japan. His study regions started from a local tributary of the Mekong River to the Tonle Sap Lake Basin during his respective degrees. To realize his studies on the whole Mekong River Basin, he joined USF as a PhD student in the Fall of 2023. Phearom is currently a part of a project on subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) flow forecasting in the Mekong River Basin. His research interests lie in watershed hydrology, flood modeling, forecasting, and AI applications in water resources.

Tione Grant ( M.S. in Environmental Engineering expected Fall 2025)

Tione’s appreciation for the land and ocean can be traced to his childhood, from his birth in St. Kitts and Nevis to moving to the US Virgin Islands. He pursued a Bachelor of Sciences in Applied Mathematics at the University of Virgin Islands. In 2020, Tione transferred to University of South Florida to pursue a bachelor’s in chemical engineering and continued his research pursuit, working with municipal wastewater treatment systems and household drinking water treatment. With each topic, his master’s research focuses on stormwater management.

data engineers

Long Lang

Long Dang grew up in a family of public service workers. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Statistics in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. He went on to work as a healthcare premium and cost actuary for a few years. To fulfill his childhood interests in computers and sport video games, Long Dang went to University of South Florida (USF) for a Msc. In Computer Science with a focus on Machine Learning and Data Visualization. He continued his Ph.D research at USF in the spring of 2021. His current research interests lie in the security of deep learning, especially for computer vision applications.

Gopi Chand Yenikapalli

Gopi is from Andhra Pradesh, India. where he earned his B.Tech in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Raipur in 2018. He served for four years as a Data Engineer in Aditya Birla Group. His passion for AI, data, and machine learning led him to pursue M.S. in Business Analytics and Information Systems at the University of South Florida, graduated in spring 2024. With a diverse background and passion for innovation, Gopi's research interests span Data Analytics, Data Engineering, Machine Learning, Environmental Forecasting, Large Language Modeling (LLM), and AI applications, reflecting his commitment to leveraging technology for societal advancement.

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHERS

Ochithya Fernando (BS in Environmental Engineering in Spring 2025)

Ochithya grew up in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and has always loved the ocean. She came to USF as an undergraduate in Fall 2021 and took classes which developed her passion for the coastlines, and changed her major to Environmental engineering, with her eyes set on coastal engineering as a career field. She is currently an undergraduate research assistant at USF, working on two projects related to microplastics and coastal protection.

Ngoc Trieu (BS in Environmental Engineering in Spring 2026)

Ngoc hails from Tay Ninh province, Vietnam, where she has observed and understood the characteristics of dry and wet seasons with the dreams of controlling them and enhancing the water quality in her homeland. She decided to pursue a Civil Engineering bachelor's degree at USF as a stepping stone to realize her aspirations. Presently, she contributes to two projects centered on water quality in Lake Okeechobee and microplastic shapes.

ALUMNI

Daniela Vásquez (MS in Civil Engineering-Water Resources Fall 2023). Now with HDR

Thanh Duc Dang (2021-2023 postdoc, Now at NIWA in New Zealand)

Nisa Ishfaqun (MS in Environmental Engineering in 2023)

Andres Lora (MS in Civil Engineering-Water Resources in Spring 2023). Now at Black and Veatch

Jenna Brooks (BS in Civil Engineering in Spring 2023). Now NSF GRF and Graduate Student at Northeastern University

Adele Howard (BS in Civil Engineering 2023)

Bruno Mancini (REU; BS in Chemical Engineering Spring 2022). Now a PhD at University of Arizona

Michelle Platz (PhD in Environmental Engineering, Spring 2022). Dissertation: Coral restoration monitoring and modelling: utilizing monitoring data to improve reef restoration site assessment

Joshua A. Benjamin (PhD in Environmental Engineering, Fall 2021). Dissertation: Seawater Desalination Energy Recovery through Pressure Retarded Osmosis: A Techno-Economic Assessment. Now with Black & Veatch.

Emily Nabong (Visiting Scholar/PhD student from Univ. of Sydney)

Lillian Mulligan (MS in Environmental Engineering, Summer 2021). Thesis: Development of a Numerical Process Model for Adsorbent-amended Constructed Wetlands.

Samar AL Mashrafi (MS in Environmental Engineering, Summer 2021). Thesis: Sustainability Assessment of a Pressure Retarded Osmosis System. Now at Arcadis

Charlotte J. Haberstroh (PhD in Civil Engineering-Water Resources, Spring 2021). Dissertation: Plastic Pollution in Coastal Urban Rivers: Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Plastic Release and Transport. Now with Black & Veatch.

Alexander J. Miller (MS in Civil Engineering, Summer 2020). Thesis: Structural and Agricultural Value at Risk in Florida from Flooding during Hurricane Irma. Now with HDR

Jessica Carlee Chaffin (BS in Civil Engineering-Environmental Water Resources Spring 2019). Now with HDR.

Ruben Palomo Martinez (BS in Civil Engineering-Environmental Water Resources Fall 2019). Now with Jones Edmunds and Associates.

Mohit Kaura (MS in Environmental Engineering, December 2018). Thesis: The Role of Forests in Securing Hydropower Needs in Cambodia.

Katie B. Castor (MS in Engineering Science/Concentration in Env. Eng., August 2018, now with FL DEP). Thesis: Regulatory Methodology and Unmitigated Wetland Loss in Southwest Florida. Now with Scalar Consulting Group, Inc.

Awet E.Tsegay (MS in Civil Engineering-Water Resources, August 2018). Thesis: Underground Stormwater Treatment Performance in Urban Coastal Catchments: Case Study of Baffle Boxes in the City of Tampa. Now with Collier Engineering.