David R. Maidment

CEEAA Distinguished Alumni Award, 2011

For significant and lasting impact on teaching, research and practice in the fields of hydrology and water resource engineering, including the pioneering of geographic information systems applications in hydrology and technologies that have been adopted by national and international institutions.

Biography

After receiving his bachelor's degree in Agricultural Engineering with First Class Honors from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, David R. Maidment moved to the United States to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Currently serving as Director of the Center for Research in Water Resources, Professor Maidment has been on the faculty at the University of Texas, Austin, since 1981 and teaches classes in hydrology, hydraulics, computer programming and GIS in Water Resources.

Maidment is a specialist in surface water hydrology, and in particular in the application of geographic information systems to hydrology. Since 1989, he has been cooperating in this field with ESRI, manufacturers of Arc/Info and ArcView, the leading GIS programs worldwide. He is the principal designer of the Arc Hydro data model, which is a customization of the ArcGIS geographic information system for surface water resources. Dr Maidment is also the leader of the CUAHSI (Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science Inc) project on Hydrologic Information Systems, which is designed to provide improved access to hydrologic data, and synthesis into a digital watershed for application at the nation’s universities.

He and his wife, Helen J. Maidment, who is also an alumna of the University of Illinois, live in Austin, Texas.