9/20/2022
Professor Marcelo H. Garcia has been elected a 2022 Fellow of the American Geophysical Union “for pioneering work on sediment transport and morphodynamics of rivers and marine environments.”
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Professor Marcelo H. Garcia has been elected a 2022 Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) “for pioneering work on sediment transport and morphodynamics of rivers and marine environments.” Fellows are recognized because of remarkable innovation and/or sustained scientific impact in Earth and space science. The honor is given to fewer than one-tenth of 1% of AGU members.
“AGU Fellows serve as global leaders and experts who propel our understanding of geosciences,” read AGU’s September 19 announcement. “Their research, which pushes our boundaries of knowledge to create a healthy planet and beyond, is an inspiration to us all. We are grateful for their invaluable contributions, hard work and sacrifice.”
“This recognition is of special significance since I became a member of AGU while in graduate school at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota, arguably the cradle of modern riverine and marine morphodynamics,” Garcia said.
Garcia holds the M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Endowed Chair of Civil Engineering and serves as Director of the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1990. He teaches undergraduate courses on Water Resources Engineering and Hydraulic Analysis and Design. At the graduate level he teaches Environmental Hydrodynamics, Sediment Transport, River Morphodynamics and Open-Channel Hydraulics.
Garcia’s current research interests are in wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 informed by stormwater simulations of virus transport and decay in sewer networks; hydraulics of Roman aqueducts, urban flooding and excess water management during extreme storm events; river mechanics, including meandering streams, bank erosion, morphodynamics and movable-bed physical modeling; sedimentation hazards such as mudflows, alluvial fans, non Newtonian hyperconcentrated flows and rheological properties; riverine sedimentation, coastal engineering and morphodynamics.
Garcia and the 53 other Fellows elected this year will be formally recognized at the AGU’s Fall Meeting, Dec. 12-16, 2022.