BATON ROUGE, La. (March 23, 2021) – Dr. Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Irvine, has been awarded the 2021 Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS) Lifetime Achievement Award. As a Water Institute of the Gulf board member, her contributions and guidance to the Water Institute team have been invaluable.
“The entire Water Institute family congratulates Efi on this well-deserved lifetime achievement award from CSDMS,” said Justin R. Ehrenwerth, president and CEO of the Water Institute. “As our colleagues in Colorado have rightly recognized, Efi has made innumerable intellectual contributions to our understanding of Earth-surface processes and she has been so gracious in sharing her knowledge as a member of the Institute’s Board of Directors. We’re grateful for Efi’s collaborative leadership, sage advice, and generous mentorship and salute her for this achievement.”
CSDMS is a collaboration between hundreds of research institutions, government agencies, and industry partners around the world who come together in a community effort to develop and distribute open-source models and modeling tools.
“Professor Foufoula-Georgiou has been a pioneer in developing mathematical theory and applying innovative data analysis methods to understand Earth-surface dynamics. Her work has led the community in learning to unlock the potential of the ongoing Earth-data revolution and demonstrated the powerful insights that can be achieved,” according to the award release. “Her contributions are wide-ranging, and include fundamental work on topographic forms, channel networks, deltas, river morphology, hydrodynamics, streamflow, sediment transport, bedforms and stratigraphy.”
“I am honored and humbled by this recognition and proud to have been part of this incredible community of Earth Surface Dynamics scholars. Their commitment to understanding the complexity of the natural world around us, and work with it rather than against it, to come up with solutions is inspiring,” Foufoula-Georgiou said.
Foufoula-Georgiou’s work also includes research into precipitation, climate, and remote sensing, which encompasses topics as diverse as wildfire, wetlands, delta systems risk assessment and management, agriculture and sustainable development.
Foufoula-Georgiou has served as director of the NSF Science and Technology Center, “National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics” and as director of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. She has served on numerous advisory boards, both nationally and internationally, including as the U.S Representative to the International Association for Hydrologic Sciences, National Committee for the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics and as Presidential appointee to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Her full bio and resume are here.
Foufoula-Georgiou is a Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Henry Samueli Chair in Engineering, and Associate Dean for Research and Innovation at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine. She is also Professor Emerita at the University of Minnesota.
About The Water Institute of the Gulf
The Water Institute is an independent, non-profit, applied research institution advancing science and developing integrated methods to solve complex environmental and societal challenges. The Institute helps communities thoughtfully prepare for an uncertain future. For more information, visit www.thewaterinstitute.org.