Katie McQuillan

Department of Geosciences, College of Science

Track

Research Frontiers

Faculty Mentor

George Allen
Assistant Professor of Hydrology and Remote Sensing

Briefly describe the research project you are planning to contribute to and lead as a postdoctoral associate at Virginia Tech. What is the problem you are addressing? What is the expected impact of your work?

My research project will focus on developing a framework to improve the accuracy of reservoir evaporation losses. Across the world, reservoirs are crucial for managing the storage and delivery of surface water for drinking, irrigation, and energy. Reservoir evaporation losses are huge, and rising temperatures are causing them to grow further. Therefore, accurate estimates of evaporation losses are essential for effective water management; however, they are difficult to quantify at large scales in part due to the difficulty of accurately estimating wind speeds at the water-air interface.

I will use observations from the recently launched NASA SWOT satellite to improve the accuracy of evaporation estimates from reservoirs. Fine-scale surface texture observations of small inland water bodies from SWOT will be used to estimate wind speed and fused with evaporation modeling to quantify reservoir evaporation loss dynamics across the western US. We expect this framework to be useful for water resource management, particularly in regions struggling with water and data scarcity.

Why did you choose to pursue postdoctoral training at Virginia Tech?

I chose Virginia Tech because of its fantastic research reputation and welcoming community. I was particularly excited about the opportunity to work on a project focused on improving water resources management using the new SWOT satellite mission within the highly collaborative Global Rivers Group, led by Dr. George Allen.

What are you most looking forward to as you begin in this fellowship at Virginia Tech?

I’m most looking forward to building relationships with new friends and colleagues and developing technical and research skills using the abundant resources at Virginia Tech.