Group Members

Satellite and ground-based rainfall remote sensing; rainfall and flood processes at urban and regional scales; computationally-intensive simulation for probabilistic natural hazards risk assessment; statistical and stochastic hydrology; modernization of stormwater and flood management theory and practice.

Dr. Wright holds bachelors and masters degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan. He worked a Regional Sanitation Engineer with the Peace Corps in Bolivia from 2006-2008 and as a consulting hydropower engineer in Chile from 2008-2009, before earning his PhD from Princeton University, where he studied urban rainfall and flood hydrometeorology with Dr. James Smith. He worked as a disaster risk management consultant at the World Bank from 2013-2014, focusing on flood and landslide risk management in Latin America and the Caribbean. Before joining the CEE faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Wright was a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center. He is the recent recipient of an NSF CAREER Award in Hydrologic Sciences. His research interests include hydrometeorology and hydroclimatology, the role of rainfall space-time variability in floods and other environmental phenomena, and applications of satellite and ground-based remote sensing.

Zhe received his bachelor (2009) and PhD (2015) degrees in Hydraulic Engineering from Tsinghua University. Before joining the Hydroclimate Extremes Research Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he worked as an assistant professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include hydrological modeling, flood hydrology, hydrometeorology, multi-source data merging and mining, and applications of remote sensing techniques in hydrology.

Christopher comes to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from Atlanta, GA, where he previously served as a research technician and lab manager for Dr. Kim Cobb’s paleoclimate and climate change laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His previous research utilized stable water isotope measurements to analyze precipitation trends and variability at the lab’s field site in Gunung Mulu National Park on the island of Borneo. Christopher also served as a student volunteer at the local National Weather Service forecast office in Peachtree City, GA, where he developed a twenty-five-year climatological survey of roadway “black ice” events in the Atlanta metropolitan area. He is a 2015 graduate of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

Guo received a bachelor degree in Water Supply and Drainage Engineering in 2011 from Tianjin Chengjian University, and a joint MS in Hydroinformatics in 2013 from Newcastle University (United Kingdom), Polytech Nice (France) and Brandenburg University of Technology (Germany). He was a Hydraulic Engineer and Team Leader in DHI China, 2013-2016.
Guo is interested in studying and developing hydrological, hydrodynamic, and water quality models and how to apply these modelling technologies and analytics to solve a challenge in flood hazards control, urban stormwater management and environmental fluid mechanics.

Sam received her bachelors degree in Geosciences from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2017. While at UT Dallas, her research experiences included work in material science, geomorphology, and groundwater modeling. Working with Dr. Thomas Brikowski and PhD student Inoka Pieris, she utilized borehole data and digital elevation models of the northern dry zone of Sri Lanka to model and analyze local groundwater flow. This information will be used to determine what impact groundwater may have in the historical and current high rates of chronic kidney disease in the region. As an undergraduate, Sam also interned with the U.S. State Department to explore her interests in environmental policy and science diplomacy. At UW Madison, Sam will be working under Dr. Wright to analyze historical precipitation measurement data and explore statistical models that increase satellite precipitation measurement accuracy.

Allison is pursuing her undergraduate degree in Biological Systems Engineering with a focus in Natural Resources and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has undergraduate research experience with the Hydroecology Research Group and the Water, Sustainability, and Climate Research Project, focusing on designing and implementing a plant root density imaging device and statistical modeling of hydrologic, soil, and plant relationships to determine the connection between soil moisture and plant root distribution in multiple ecosystems. Allison is also a stream monitor volunteer with the Rock River Coalition and collects data on temperature, dissolved oxygen, water clarity, and aquatic species in the Madison, Wisconsin area.

Zhihua Zhu joins us for 2017-2018 from China, where he is pursuing a Ph D at Sun Yat-Sen University. His doctoral research focuses on how to evaluate and control the floods in urban areas, and some of his research have been published. More details can be found in his ResearchGate website (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhihua_Zhu4). At the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the CEE department, Zhihua is advised by Dr. Wright to research the impact of rainfall space-time structure in flood frequency.

Alexa received her undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015 and Master’s degree in Water Resources Engineering. During her undergraduate career Alexa’s research involved modeling daily variations in temperature and oxygen profiles in a dimictic lake as driven by atmospheric data. She used this to examine how a changing climate could cause temperature and oxygen stress for coldwater fish. As an intern at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Alexa worked to update and improve a comprehensive atlas identifying sections of the Wisconsin interstates that are at risk of flooding during a 100-year event. Her masters research involved modeling the effects of rainfall rate averaging on runoff estimation using a one-dimensional infiltration model.

Cassia graduated from the University of the Virgin Islands with a bachelors degree in Mathematics. As a participant in NASA’s MUREP/MIRO program, she joined us the summer of 2017. Her previous research experience varies from materials science to marine ecology, analyzing data obtained from chemically doped graphene and developing a model for the prediction of dissolved oxygen concentration in a lagoon area. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Her research focus was the changing flood behavior in the Turkey River watershed in Iowa.