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  • Research
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Marc F. Muller, Assistant Professor

Link to CV
Hailing from a ski resort in the Swiss alps, I went into engineering with the laudable goal of becoming rich by manufacturing artificial diamonds for the Swiss watch industry. It took one trip to Southeast Asia to make me realize that the world has bigger problems, and that engineers can do something about them. I became passionate about water issues in developing countries. After a civil engineering license in Switzerland (MSc. EPFL) and several research trips in developing countries (Cambodia and Tanzania), where I was mostly interested in water quality issues (particularly arsenic), I moved to California as a Fulbright Scholar in the pursuit of multi-disciplinarity -- the only efficient way to address real world problems.
I did my PhD at the University of California Berkeley, where I was interested in streamflow prediction and rural electrification in Nepal, and a postdoc a Stanford University, where I focused on remote sensing and transboundary water issues in the Middle East. I also had the honor of teaching undergraduate maths at [Prison University Project], a degree-granting university program within the walls of St-Quentin State Prison (CA).
While a hydrologist and water engineer at core, I am fascinated by creative ways to model human behavior (what economists do), and by transformative technologies to extract and disseminate knowledge from data (what computer scientists do). My passion as a researcher is to integrate insights from these fields in a useful way to promote equitable and sustainable global access to safe water and energy.

Postdocs

Dr Leonardo Bertassello

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​Leonardo received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Purdue University under the mentorship of Dr. Suresh Rao and Dr. Antoine Aubueneau. During his Ph.D. he developed stochastic hydrological models to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of multiple wetlands across landscapes. The characterization of wetland hydrologic dynamics is fundamental for all the ecological communities that live in these precious habitats. Guided by this motivation, during his previous Postdoctoral appointment at Purdue University (2019-2020) he expanded his research focus into the ecological dynamics of species that could inhabit wetlandscapes by employing metapopulation models and network-based approaches to represent wetlandscapes as patchy habitats that could be colonized or not by certain type of organisms.


Leonardo joined our research group in September 2020 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and will be working under the mentorship of Dr. Marc Muller and Dr. Diogo Bolster on several projects focused on how the distribution and access to water resources can affect the distribution, interactions and resilience of human communities.

Dr Fengwei Hung

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​Fengwei received his doctorate in Geography and Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. His dissertation investigates green infrastructure efficacy in controlling urban stormwater management and adaptive planning. Previously, his postdoctoral research explored the impacts of farmers' adaptation to climate change on water resources management in the Colorado River Basin and environmental flow allocations in data-limited river basins. 
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Fengwei joined the University of Notre Dame as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in July 2022, working under the mentorship of Dr. Marc Muller. He is leading a project to explore how the heterogeneous economic and hydrogeologic conditions in countries sharing a transboundary aquifer cause premature groundwater depletion. His research interests include water resources, green infrastructure, climate adaptation and city resilience to extreme weather, such as droughts, floods, and heatwaves.

Graduate Students

Lauren McGiven

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Current Project: A new approach to identify rice paddies and patches of rice with similar irrigation schedules & A web-based game to explore trade-offs in farming irrigation decisions 

​Lauren was born and raised in California and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. Here, Lauren was introduced to academic research through her work with the Advanced Power and Energy Program. Her main undergraduate research explored the effects of climate change on the future availability of hydroelectric power. 

Currently, she is a second year PhD student and NSF fellow studying at the University of Notre Dame with advisor Dr. Marc Müller to investigate topics related to remote sensing and human decision making. Her first project was the development of a novel approach to map rice paddies and patches of rice paddies with similar irrigation schedules using Google Earth Engine and Sentinel-1 data. For her most recent project, she is collaborating with Notre Dame’s Center for Research Computing and Dr. Müller to develop a web-based game investigating the different trade-offs farmers may face when making irrigation decisions. Feel free to contact Lauren at lmcgiven@nd.edu with any inquiries or collaboration opportunities. 

Patrick Cho

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Current Project:  Stable isotopes and the Indian Walker Circulation

Growing up in California and Indonesia, Patrick has always been awestruck by wildlife. Inspired by countless hours of watching his heroes on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, Patrick dreamt of becoming an Earth Scientist. He envisioned himself helping the organisms that inhabit this planet and learning about the processes that drive this world. With this goal in mind, he felt that the field of climate science was where he could help make the most positive impact on the world. Patrick pursued a B.S in Geological Sciences at the University of Southern California focusing his research on organic geochemistry and paleoclimatology. In order to further his knowledge on modern climate science, he got a M.A in Climate and Society at Columbia University where he focused his research on the impacts of climate change and variability on modern and past societal issues. Now, Patrick is working on his PhD at the University of Notre Dame under the tutelage of Dr. Marc Muller hoping to combine techniques from hydrology, econometrics, paleoclimatology, and organic biogeochemistry. He aims to research the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation in Africa and India to better understand the effects of rainfall events on past, modern, and future societies. ​

Alumni

Dr Connor Mullen
Graduate Student. Now an high school and AP instructor at Seabury Hall, Maui (HI)

Dr. Gopal Penny

Postdoc. Now an Assistant Professor at National University of Singapore

Dr Kevin Roche

Postdoc. Now an Assistant Professor at Boise State University

Amy Kryston

Graduate student. Now an MPH student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Jaynise Perez-Valentin
Graduate Student, now a researcher in Dr H Fernando's group at Notre Dame

Undergraduate Students

Current

  • Katie Sullivan, Environmental Engineering and  Kellogg International Scholar Program

Previous

  • Kelsey Kennedy, Chemical Engineering and Kellogg International Scholar Program
  • Talia Harb, Civil Engineering and Kellogg International Scholar Program
  • Adam Wiechman, Dual Environmental Engineering and Political Science (Currently a PhD student at Arizona State University)
  • Marisa Ross, Environmental Engineering
  • Dunyeng Huh, Applied Computational Mathematics and Statistics
  • Noah Junge, Environmental Engineering
  • Claire Nauman, Environmental Engineering
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