I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched
– Norman Maclean
About Me
Postdoctoral Researcher at the Utah State University
I am a fluvial geomorphologist and watershed scientist who studies the transport of material – water, sediment, wood, nutrients, etc. – through river basins to understand how river landscapes act, react, and evolve as connected networks of processes.
Though I'm always looking to add tools to my toolbox, my research primarily uses field-based measurements and sampling in conjunction with lab analyses and statistical techniques to understand how watersheds are connected across time and space.
My life outside of research generally consists of skiing, climbing, petting my cats, and eating peanut M&Ms. Not necessarily in that order.
If you'd like to collaborate, chat, or learn more, please reach out.
News & Events
(Curious what's been afoot? Well — expand below)
March 7th. 2025
Building a turbidity forecasting tool for drinking water supply
New York City, like any community, relies on clean drinking water, but unlike many in the United States, NYC does not filter its water supply, meaning that when sediment loads are high in one particular reservoir in its supply system, it must draw from another. To better increase anticipation of these events, myself and a wonderful band of colleagues from the University of Vermont built a machine learning tool that forecasts turbidity (a surrogate for sediment content) in one of the chief supply basins in NYC's water supply system. Built entirely with open-source code and trained on publicly available data, this work creates a blueprint for anyone looking to adapt a similar approach in their watershed(s) of interest. You can read more about it here and find the code to do so yourself here.
August 7th, 2024
Some trees are more stressed than others
A really nice new paper from our friend Richie Thaxton and a merry band of riparian ecologists and geomorphologists that finds cottonwood trees in Canyonlands National Park – where streamflow regulation is greater and things are altogether drier – have less percent healthy canopy and are shorter and more slowly growing than their compatriots upstream, where water is more readily available. Read more about it here.
August 1st, 2024
Westward ho (again)
I'm excited to announce that I am now a postdoctoral researcher at the Utah State University. I'll be working on a variety of projects: leveraging machine learning, large-scale physical models, and big observational data sets to understand water quality drivers and forecast concentration and load; investigating the drivers of fluvial erosion in post-fire watersheds (especially regarding the connection between large wood dynamics and channel erosion "hotspots'); and continuing to expand understanding of how snow avalanches impact mountain river form and function.
May 5th, 2024
Estimating sediment storage at large scales
Floodplains (and other features) store sediment throughout river networks, but where, exactly? And how much? As we continue to protect and restore natural river function, understanding these questions is essential to ensure that we do so effectively and efficiently. Our new paper in River Research and Applications takes a stab at estimating sediment storage and examining its patterns across the (biased opinion here) greatest watershed there is: the Colorado River Basin. Take a look here.
December 13th, 2023
Snow avalanches as agents of wood supply in mountain watersheds
Have you ever witnessed or seen video of an avalanche plunging down a mountainside and thought to yourself "Hmm, I wonder what impact that has on the stream at the bottom of the valley?" Well, then, you're in luck: our new paper in Geophysical Research Letters does (almost) just that. Read more about here.
June 30th, 2023
Native vegetation adds strength to river banks in Iceland
Some cool new work from Sara Rathburn and friends on how native vegetation being planted across Iceland in afforestation efforts adds cohesion to river banks and increases resistance to erosion. Read more about it here.
April 21st, 2023
The greater the difference, the larger the change
Increased sediment supply is known to drive river evolution, but at what scale? In a new review paper in Earth-Science Reviews, we scrutinize the literature on sediment supply-driven channel change in low-gradient rivers and derive a framework for anticipating alteration from a given influx of sediment. If you have a some time on your hands (it is, admittedly, a tad long), you can read more about it here.
February 5th, 2023
Why wood should move in rivers
Well, why? (I won't spoil it). An intriguing paper from Ellen Wohl and Co. on how wood movement is inherent in many of the benefits large wood provides and why management and restoration should, to the extent possible, prioritize wood that can indeed move. You can read more about it here.
January 3rd, 2023
Contaminant zones in the urban subsurface steadily bleed pollutants to urban streams
New research from Claire Welty and friends that examines the complex ways in which groundwater and the built environment interact to influence surface water quality. Read more about it here.