Affiliation(s):

• Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Geology, Wayne State University
• Designated Campus Colleague, Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Science, University of Arizona

As a hydrologist I have always had the pleasure of working at the interfaces of many disciplines. There is no question though that working at these interfaces can be challenging with respect to, for instance, time and space scales (e.g. geologic time versus the lifecycle of a plant).  However, bridging these disciplines is highly rewarding because it has enabled me to help address complex global change issues, which increasingly intertwine social, economic and environmental dimensions. I have enjoyed working on these issues with teams that bring together researchers from physical, biological, and social sciences. Three thematic areas that have focused my research in addressing these broader issues:

• Ecohydrological controls on land-atmosphere interactions
• Role of vegetation in critical zone and contaminant transport processes
• Urban sustainability under global change pressures

In the most general sense, ecohydrology to me involves the way in which plants influence hydrologic processes, and in turn, how hydrology influences plant dynamics. In my view this could happen at multiple time and space scales and play an important role with how the land-surface interacts with the atmosphere.

When I started out my academic career, ecohydrology was really just gaining momentum as a new interdisciplinary science. I was lucky enough to have encountered some big thinkers throughout my graduate career who pushed me to look at the world with a curious interdisciplinary perspective.

As an undergraduate, I did a research experience for undergraduates at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico. I wanted to use my mathematics education in environmental science applications. At LANL (in 1997), I worked under the mentorship of Dr. Dave Breshears on my K-College Senior Individualized Project “Hillslope Runoff Through Grids of Patchy Vegetation: Predictions Using Modified Percolation Theory” as part of my mathematics degree. Through that project It turned out I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work closely with two of today’s most influential ecohydrologists – Dr. Breshears (ecologist) and Dr. Brad Wilcox (hydrologist). 

After LANL, I decided to pursue a Masters Degree at University of Virginia (UVA), where under the mentorship of Dr. John Albertson I was exposed to eddy covariance and remote sensing techniques. John introduced our UVA cohort to big interdisciplinary thinkers like Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe and William Kustas. They helped me to see the importance of scale and how the land surface was connected to the atmosphere through the vegetation.

My time at UVA left me wanting a better hands-on understanding of what I had been modeling. So, I ventured off to New Mexico Tech to work with Dr. Eric Small (now at University of Colorado) – where I began to work in the field giving me a keen appreciation for the challenges of collecting data. Eric also had a partnership with University of Arizona through the NSF funded Science and Technology Center “SAHRA” which gave me the opportunity to interact with more field-oriented interdisciplinary hydrologists like Paul Brooks and Russ Scott. During that time I also was fortunate enough to have attended a small formative AGU Chapman conference on semiarid ecohydrology that  gave me the opportunity to meet and brainstorm with more of our big interdisciplinary thinkers like Rob Jackson and Travis Huxman. And it was from there that I was really committed to dryland ecohydrology.

The bottom line for me is that as a student I was encouraged to talk with people from different disciplines and different perspectives. Those discussions shaped the way I think about problems. Over time, ecohydrology became the intuitive way for me to think about the interconnected processes on the land surface and their feedbacks with the atmosphere.

Changes on the land surface are becoming increasingly recognized as important yet poorly quantified components of global climate change. Human activity has been a major contributor to these land surface changes. The interplay between land surface and the atmosphere is a key indicator for assessing human impact on the environment and understanding their interactions is essential to improving the predictive capability of global and regional models. In urban areas, the modification of the land surface by human actions, e.g. through the construction of buildings, addition of impervious surfaces and changes in vegetation, is especially evident and has been shown to impact climatology from local to regional scales.

Importantly, urban areas are expanding in terms of their impact on the globe. My recent relocation to the urban Wayne State University campus in the heart of Detroit has afforded me the opportunity to pivot my research program to focus on this largely understudied land surface. Here I am enthusiastic to engage with the local community to build upon the insights gained in looking at the ecohydrological controls on land – atmosphere interactions in water-limited ecosystems to focus my research in ways that work toward a better understanding how the ever-evolving complex urban system interfaces with the atmosphere and feedbacks with the climate system.

In all seriousness, there are so many good books and publications out there.  Just to be different, I am going to put this one on the table – Roald Dahl’s “Danny the Champion of the World“. It was one of my favorites growing up (Roald Dahl is one of my favorite authors), and continues to be one of my favorites today.   I love the relationship between Danny and his Dad. But as far as it’s relationship to STEM – this duo teams up against a culture by experimenting with some new innovative approaches that they came up with together.

My favorite ecohydrology paper is “Ecohydrology: A hydrologic perspective of climate‐soil‐vegetation dynamics” by Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe published in Water Resources Research in 2000. This “vision paper” emphasizes the role of soil moisture in connecting the vegetation to the atmosphere and also to biogeochemical processes. I also feel that it came at a time when I was one of those “young researchers” that was looking for the sort of encouragement that Dr. Rodriguez-Iturbe was bestowing.

I can’t think of a better role model than my (late) Grandma Kurc. She raised 5 healthy boys in urban Detroit (my uncles who all still live in Michigan!). Having two boys of my own, I have no idea how she did it!  She spent the last few years in the house next door to us teaching my siblings and I the important things in life – like how to make pierogi, how to play polish poker, how to grow flowers, how to decorate for the holidays.  I think really she taught me how to live and love – selflessly.

 With respect to a scientists, I don’t have a favorite in particular. In graduate school we had a science biography book club. The idea was that we would learn about the “people” that did the science so we could relate it to our experience as growing scientists. We read about Marie Curie, Robert Oppenheimer, Primo Levi, Rosalind Franklin, Albert Einstein, Alan Turing and many others. They are all amazing people, and their lives were extraordinary.  I love being reminded that the bottom line is that these scientists are humans, just like us.

As for role models in science, I do have several. I think for me though, the late hydrometeorologist Dr. Jim Shuttleworth has by far influenced me the most. Jim is perhaps one of the most celebrated scientists in the young field of hydrology. I met him as a graduate student when I started my PhD program (at New Mexico Tech).  Even at that time I felt like Jim treated me as a peer and valued my contributions. He truly made me feel like a hydrologist. Jim had this unique inclusive and curious approach to learning that has helped develop a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists that have moved beyond their established boundaries by enabling them to incorporate hydrologic principles in broadening their thinking. Furthermore, Jim always put his family and community first. He was a first generation scientist that always had his wife and family by his side.  You will always be in my heart Jim.