Director, Illinois Water Resources Center

Clinical Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Professor, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences

• Groundwater and Geothermal Resources
• Groundwater and Surface Water Interactions
• Groundwater Flow and Thermal Transport Modeling

• Development and Testing of a Subsurface Energy Transport Package for MODFLOW, 2022 – 2024, Principal Investigator, awarded by U.S. Geological Survey.
• Renewable Energy Resilience: City-scale Geothermal Energy Everywhere, 2022 – 2024, Principal Investigator, awarded by U.S. Geological Survey.
• FedGeo Technical Assistance Pipeline for Low-Temperature Geothermal Technologies, 2022 – 2024, Senior Staff, awarded by U.S. Department of Energy.
• Regenerative Agriculture and the Human Health Nexus in the age of Climate Change, 2021 – 2022, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by the Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Campus as a Living Laboratory: Integrating Groundwater Resources and Geothermal Energy for Water–Energy Security and Resilience, 2020 – 2022, Principal Investigator, awarded by the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Geothermal Heat Recovery Complex: Large-Scale, Deep Direct-Use System in a Low-Temperature Sedimentary Basin, 2017 – 2020, Principal Investigator, awarded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy.
• Thermal Response Test Unit for Geothermal Pilot Project, 2017 – 2018, Advisor, Student Sustainability Committee project awarded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Development on Improving Geothermal Exchange Infrastructure, 2016-2017, Principal Investigator, awarded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, U.S. Department of Defense.
• Using Distributed Temperature Sensing to Measure Stream–Aquifer Exchange at the Ribeirão da Onça Creek Watershed in the Guarani Aquifer System, 2016 – 2018, Principal Investigator, awarded by the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP [Grant# 2015/03806-1].
• High Resolution Temperature Profiling and Thermal Analysis for Geothermal Energy, 2016 – 2018, Principal Investigator, awarded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• MRI: Acquisition of a National CyberGIS Facility for Computing and Data-Intensive Geospatial Research and Education, 2014 – 2017, Senior Personnel, awarded by US National Science Foundation.
• Scientific Activities in Support of Water Supply Planning, Illinois, 2014 – 2016, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
• Intensively Managed Landscapes-Critical Zone Observatory (IML-CZO), Established in 2013, Investigator, awarded by US National Science Foundation.
• Protecting drinking water by reducing uncertainties associated with the geologic carbon sequestration in deep saline aquifers, 2010 – 2013, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by US Environmental Protection Agency – Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program.
• Groundwater Studies for Water Supply Planning in McHenry County, Illinois, 2010 – 2012, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by McHenry County, Illinois.
• Scientific Support for Updating Elgin’s Comprehensive Water Master Plan, 2010, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by Engineering Enterprises, Inc.
• Illinois water supply planning, 2007 – 2010, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by the State of Illinois.
• Balancing irrigation and instream water requirements under drought conditions: a study of the Kankakee River watershed, 2007 – 2009, Collaborator, awarded by the Illinois Water Resources Center.
• Smart Pipe – Nanosensors for monitoring water quantity and quality in public water systems, 2006 – 2009, Principal Investigator, awarded by US Environmental Protection Agency – Midwest Technology Assistance Center.
• The development of point-to-zone pattern learning (P2Z) for groundwater recharge and discharge estimation, 2006 – 2008, Principal Investigator, awarded by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications - Faculty Fellows Program 2006.
• Antibiotic resistance genes and residues in water and soil in close proximity to swine production facilities, 2005 – 2009, Co-Principal Investigator, awarded by U.S. Department of Agriculture (National Research Initiative Competitive Grants).
• Estimating shallow recharge and discharge in northeastern Illinois using GIS and pattern-recognition procedures, 2004 – 2007, Principal Investigator, awarded by U.S. Geological Survey and National Institutes for Water Resources (National Competitive Grants 104G).
• Spatial and temporal shallow recharge rates in Wisconsin, 2003 – 2006, Collaborator, awarded by U.S. Geological Survey internal fund.
• Water-resources investigations for Kane County, Illinois, 2002 – 2008, Researcher, awarded by Kane County, Illinois and the State of Illinois.

uWATER-PA – Ubiquitous WebGIS Analysis Toolkit for Extensive Resources: an ArcGIS Explorer plug-in package developed for initial assessment on complex groundwater pumping impacts (Details and download available at https://www.isws.illinois.edu/iswsdocs/sware/uwaterpa/uWATER-PA-Manual.pdf)

uWATER – The ubiquitous WebGIS Analysis Toolkit for Extensive Resources: an ArcGIS Explorer plug-in package developed for visualizing and analyzing decision support variables (Details and download available at https://www.isws.illinois.edu/iswsdocs/sware/uwater/uWATER1.1-Manual.pdf)

SP2Learn – Spatial Pattern to Learn: A software suite for geospatial modeling from ancillary field measurements using image processing and machine learning (Details and download available at http://isda.ncsa.illinois.edu/download/index.php?project=SP2Learn&category=documentation&version=Unknown&file=SP2Learn_v2_userGuide20090112.pdf)

PRO-GRADE – Pattern Recognition Organizer and Groundwater Recharge And Discharge Estimator for Geographic Information Systems: A software package includes two GIS plug-in tools for image and map pattern recognition and groundwater recharge and discharge estimation in 2D and steady state (Details and download available at https://www.isws.illinois.edu/iswsdocs/sware/prograde/PRO-GRADE-guide-web.pdf)

Commissioner, Appointee of Illinois Governor, since 2020, Great Lakes Commission

Fellow, since 2018, Geological Society of America

Executive Editor, since 2017, Groundwater, National Ground Water Association

Delegate, Since 2013, the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR)

Representative, since 2011, Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) established by U.S. National Science Foundation

President-Elect, 2024-2025, National Institutes for Water Resources

Board Member, 2020-2027, National Institutes for Water Resources

Chair of Water Resources, 2020-2023, Board on Natural Resources, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)

Chair, 2021-2022, Hydrogeology Division, Geological Society of America

Management Board Member, 2018-2023, Hydrogeology Division, Geological Society of America

Heating Your Home Through Geothermal Power by Wisconsin Public Radio

The Massive ‘Batteries’ Hidden Beneath Your Feet by WIRED

Sustainability at the University of Illinois: Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) 2020 objectives 

PRI Scientists and Students Study Geothermal Exchange Technology on U of I Campus

Fiber-optic Sensing Enables Precise Temperature Monitoring of Geothermal Exchange System

A Natural Choice: Mathematica's Role in Natural Resource Studies

Faculty Fellow Lecture at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications