People
People in their own words
Dr. Colin J Gleason is the Armstrong Professor of Professional Development, in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received his PhD at UCLA in Geography in 2016. He focuses on translating process based hydrology and geochemistry to global scales through extensive Arctic fieldwork, satellite data processing, and geomorphically informed modelling and data assimilation. He is an NSF CAREER awardee, a NASA New Investigator, the Director for Calibration and Validation of U.S. Inland Hydrology for the upcoming NASA SWOT satellite, and member of the Science Teams for NASA’s SWOT and High Mountain Asia programs. He builds wooden canoes and enjoys board games with complicated rules, being snobby about tea, and gardening.
Taylor Rowley is a research fellow and the lead technician for the NASA Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) calibration and validation team. Taylor received her PhD from Louisiana State University where she studied the shapes and interactions between meander bends and point bars using high-resolution field monitoring techniques (i.e., multibeam sonar, lidar, UAVs, ADCP, and GPR). During and after her PhD, she worked for USGS as a hydrologist in both Louisiana and North Carolina where her research focused on geospatial analysis of rivers morphology from reach to CONUS watershed scales. Taylor is happiest when integrating science with physical labor, pattern detecting, and sharing her passions with others. She has surveyed rivers across the country and is eager to expand her collection leading the cal/val effort. Beyond work, Taylor can be found riding her bike, skiing, climbing, and chasing clouds.
Fiona Bennitt is pursuing a PhD in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. They received their B.A. in Geology from Whitman College in 2017. After graduating, they worked as a data analyst studying global environmental and occupational risk factors and earned an A.S. in Engineering Science. They hope to improve our understanding of reservoir storage and emissions. Fiona enjoys hiking, cycling, knitting, and gardening.
Elisa Friedmann is pursuing a PhD in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She previously earned a B.S. in Biochemistry with a Certificate in Environment and Sustainability as well as a B.A. in Plan II Honors at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduation, she spent four years as a multiday river guide, conservation writer, and citizen scientist water quality monitor. She hopes to improve our knowledge concerning water quality and quantity in large rivers using remote sensing products, especially in the Arctic. Ellie also enjoys whitewater kayaking, skiing, traveling, and jigsaw puzzles.
Jonathan Flores is a PhD student at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Colin Gleason. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering from Cavite State University (Philippines) and his Master’s degree in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Washington State University. His research revolves around hydrology, machine learning, and remote sensing of river discharge and water quality in large drainage basins. Jonathan enjoys anime, cycling, and basketball.
Yuta Ishitsuka is currently working with Prof. Colin Gleason as a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degree from the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan. He developed the operational global/regional flood forecasting system implemented in the national server of Japan for his three years of engineering research, and is now seeking the possibility of the fusion of global flood forecasting and remotely sensed datasets. His interests lie in the field of global land surface modeling, hydrological prediction, and data assimilation. He loves traveling, trekking, snowboarding,and Japanese video-games.
Heejin An is pursuing a PhD in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Konkuk University, South Korea. Her research interests include global-scale hydrological processes, remote sensing for water resource analysis, and the impact of floods on the carbon cycle. Heejin enjoys board games, hiking, reading novels, and watching dramas
Travis Simmons is a research fellow and the lead software engineer for the NASA Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) cloud processing pipelines (Confluence). Travis received training in data analytics, remote sensing, and plant biology at the College of Coastal Georgia. Travis then worked as a Research Data Support Specialist at the University of Arizona, where he created machine learning based data analytics pipelines for the world's largest plant phenotyping robot. Travis loves to get excited about science with his collaborators, and leverage his background in computing to help bring their ideas to fruition. Outside of work, Travis loves to play blues music, read, and play video games.
Alumni
Dr. Dongmei Feng was a postdoc with us and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati. Her current research interests focus on surface hydrology, fluvial hydrology and hydrologic modeling, and she seeks to develop novel methods and integrate the state-of-art remotely-sensed data products to improve hydrologic process representation.
