Current

Utah Urban Water Research Group

 

Carly Hansen

Postdoctoral Researcher

Carly received her B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from BYU, and recently completed her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on the complex and varied intersections between urban and natural waters. This nexus faces many challenges in the future because of hydrologic uncertainty and drought, climate change, and urbanization/development. She is interested in using emerging technologies, including remote sensing, data-driven models, systems models, and hydroinformatic tools to explore water quantity and quality problems under these changing conditions. 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlyhyatthansen/

Twitter: @carlsbrad

Email: carly.hansen@utah.edu

 

Sangmin Shin

Postdoctoral Researcher

Dr. Sangmin Shin received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Pusan National University and his M.S. and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He has research interest on resilience and smartness of urban water infrastructure systems and has contributed to various research projects related to engineering resilient, smart infrastructure systems. Currently, his research focuses on developing decision support tools to design, operate, and manage smart, resilient, and financially sustainable water infrastructure systems against complex, uncertain disturbances such as water scarcity, cyber-physical attacks, and infrastructure deterioration with aging. Using system analytics, hydraulic models, system dynamics models, and optimization algorithms, his research contributes to decision making for improving system performance during/after disruptions and how to manage water and infrastructures in wise, resilient, and cost-effective ways in a long-term perspective.  

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangmin-shin-6b0aa9111/

Email: sangmin.shin@utah.edu

 

 

 

Seungyub Lee

PhD Candidate

Seungyub received both B.S. and M.Eng from Korea University, South Korea. His research focuses on (1) life cycle energy analysis of water distribution system, (2) evaluating sustainability and resilience of water distribution system, (3) investment economic consequence induced by water distribution system failure, (4) water leakage control of water distribution system, (5) water distribution system structural analysis using graph theory. Most of his research focuses on asset management and energy management of the urban water infrastructure, especially to solve the aging infrastructure problem. Seungyub is looking for research field job after completion of Ph.D

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seungyublee87/

Email: seungyub.lee@utah.edu

 

Ryan Johnson

PhD Student

Ryan received his B.S. in Earth Systems Science form UCI and M.S. in Environmental Science from CSUF. His current research focuses on Utah’s Great Salt Lake economic and environmental impacts and Pakistan’s water, energy, food nexus. Both topics encounter many uncertainties in the future with respect to variable climate conditions, population growth, and other anthropogenic influences. He interested in developing policy-driving technologies that integrate remote sensing, systems models, and hydroinformatic tools to identify environmental, economic, and societal impacts concerning predicted future conditions.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-johnson-022a8784/

Email: ryan.c.johnson@utah.edu

 

Jiada Li

PhD Student

Jiada completed his bachelor’s degree at South China University of Technology and master’s degree at Tongji University in the Department of Municipal Engineering. He is currently working as a graduate research assistant in Urban Water Group of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah. Jiada’s dissertation study aims to provide an efficient monitoring and adaptive controlling (EMAC) framework for the smart storm water system; this framework is involved of sensor monitoring, real-time control strategy development, storm water control algorithm optimization, and flood simulation. His research work mainly focuses on: 1) Compile real-time measurements to SWMM (Storm Water Management Model) model to improve the simulation capacity; 2) Combine sensor monitoring and adaptive real-time control techniques to achieve desired hydraulic outcomes in downstream catchment; 3) Optimize the analytic stormwater control strategy to enable efficient flood forecasting. Gaining the insight into how sensor monitoring and real-time control to reduce extreme storm events and to improve flood forecasting on urban watershed, researchers can perform a more efficient decision-making process.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiada-li-7950a414a 

Email:  jiada.li@utah.edu

 

Daniyal Hassan

PhD Student

Daniyal received his B.E. in Civil Engineering and MS in Integrated Water Resources Management from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan. He is currently working as a Graduate Research Assistant on a NASA-funded project to develop insight on Using Precipitation Measured from Space for Water Management Solutions at the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. Daniyal’s dissertation aims to investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of the historical meteorological droughts and consequences in Pakistan using multi-driver and impact assessment indices. This approach would combine the precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, evaporative, agricultural, and socio-economic indices using joint distribution functions to understand the whole mechanisms of drought from growth – termination, and further correlate with the WEF nexus to quantify the consequences in each sector. 

Email:  u6010713@umail.utah.edu

 

 

Daniyal Aziz

PhD Student

Daniyal completed Bachelors in Civil Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar and Masters in Environmental Engineering from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro. His research focuses on the flexible design of urban water supply systems under various types of uncertainties such as climate change, population movement, and economic development. Daniyal's research aims to (1) develop a financially and environmentally sustainable water supply system using system dynamics modeling for the city of Hyderabad, Pakistan; (2) Model the future flows upstream and downstream of Kotri barrage to assess future water availability and; (3) coupling system dynamic model with EPANET/SWMM to evaluate the condition of the water supply and distribution system under different probable future scenarios. 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danyal-aziz-78328084/

Email:  danyal.aziz@utah.edu 

 

 

Ahmed Rafique

PhD Student

Rafique received his B.E in Civil Engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan. He has three years of consultancy experience with Ch2MHill, where he worked as a Design Engineer responsible for the designing of wet services, including storm and sewer drainage, irrigation and water supply. Rafique gained his MSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City with the focus in Integrated Water Resources Management. Working under the umbrella of the USAID mission in Pakistan, he has directly worked with the government agencies, and have provided technical support to the professors and students in their ongoing research. Based on his MSc research, he has delivered a number of presentations and lectures at EWRI (2016 and 2018), WAPDA (2018), Abasyn University (2018), and Hagler Bailly Pakistan (2016 and 2018). Rafique is currently a PhD student at the University of Utah, working as a Graduate Research Assistant under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Steven Burian. His research focuses on increasing the integration of different components of urban drainage management to increase the infrastructure resilience against the risks of long-term changes in the urban environment.

 

Linkedin: http://pk.linkedin.com/in/ahmedrafique

Email: arafique89@gmail.com

 

Nathan Lunstad

PhD Student

Nathan Lunstad, P.E., completed his B.S. and M.S. at Brigham Young University in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Nathan is the Permitting Section manager for the Utah Division of Drinking Water and has over 20 years of experience working on environmental and water projects in consulting (CH2M Hill and MWH), and local and state government. His research focuses on studying water usage and demand in water distribution systems.


Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-lunstad-0545607/

Email: lunstad@gmail.com

 

Mohammad Imran

 Masters Student

Imran received his bachelors in Civil Engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. He has worked with CH2M in a capacity of Water Engineer and was involved in infrastructure design and development. His research focuses on the stormwater management and integration of low impact development component to study their impacts and resilience under varying future precipitations. He is also involved in developing a system-wide water quality and quantity model of Utah Lake and Jordan River watersheds in Utah State.

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/mohamad-imran

Email: u1055272@utah.edu