People
Faculty
Bo Guo, Ph.D.
Bo is an assistant professor in Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences and affiliated faculty of the Graduate Program in Applied Math. Before joining the U of A, he was a postdoc in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University working with Prof. Hamdi Tchelepi. Bo received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2016 working with Prof. Michael Celia in the Subsurface Hydrology Research Group, and BS (with highest honor) in Hydraulic Engineering from Tsinghua University in China in 2011. See Curriculum Vitae .
Research scientist
Jicai Zeng, Ph.D.
Jicai is a research scientist in our group, after being a postdoctoral research associate for a few years. He received his BS and PhD degrees both from Wuhan Univeristy. Jicai specializes in numerical modeling of flow and transport in porous media with applications to hydrology and enviromental problems in the subsurface. His current research focuses on field-scale numerical modeling of PFAS fate and transport in soil and groundwater.
Graduate Students
Hassan Saleem
Hassan joined our group as a PhD student in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences in August 2019. He is interested in computational modeling of contaminant transport in soil and groundwater. Hassan is co-advised by Prof. Hoshin Gupta.
Wenqian Zhang
Wenqian joined our group as a PhD student in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences in August 2021. He received his BS and MS degrees both in Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics from Chongqing University. His research interest lies in microscale multicomponent transport and interfacial phenomena in porous media.
Jianwen Du
Jianwen joined our group as a PhD student in August 2022. She received her BS in Groundwater Science and Engineering from Chang'an University and MS in Hydrology and Water Resources from Nanjing University. Jianwen is interested in critical zone science, hydro-bio-geochemistry, reactive transport modeling, and deep learning methods. Her current research focuses on modeling the hydro-bio-geochemical processes during chemical weathering. Jianwen is co-advised by Prof. Guo-Yue Niu and Prof. Peter Troch.
Xenia Gracia
Xenia De Gracia joined the group in 2022 as a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Environmental Sciences where her primary advisor is Prof. Jon Chorover. She holds an MSc. in Hydrology from the University of Arizona, and she graduated in Environmental Engineering and Geological Engineering from the Technological University of Panama. Her research interest lies in the reactive transport of metal(loid)s through mine tailings and how they get to soil and groundwater.
Min Ma
Min joined our group as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences in August 2023. She received her BS in Hydrology and Water Resources from University of Jinan, followed by a MS in the same field from Shandong University. Min is interested in the mathematical modeling of transport and partitioning of contaminants (especially for PFAS) in porous media.
Xin Wang
Xin joined our group as a visiting PhD student in May 2023. She is a PhD student in the State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control from Chongqing University, co-advised by Prof. Chao-Zhong Qin. Her research focuses on the physics of two-phase flow in porous media from pore scale to darcy scale.
Jake Smith
Jake joined the group in Summer 2022 as a Master of Science student. He received his BS in Hydrology at the University of Arizona in May of 2022. He has been working on analytical and numerical modeling of PFAS leaching in the subsurface.
Ryan Russell
Ryan is a Master of Science student in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences who joined the group in August 2022 after he worked as a hydrogeologist for a few years in an environmental consulting firm. He received a B.S. in Environmental Geology with a subtrack in Hydrogeology from the University of Kansas. His research interests include numerical modeling of the fate and transport of contaminants, especially PFAS.
Alumni
Sidian Chen
Sidian was a PhD student in our group (2018-2023). The title of his PhD dissertation was "Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Multiphase Flow, Transport, and Phase Change in Porous Media: Pore-Level Physics, Network Modeling and Upscaling." Sidian is now a postdoc at Stanford University working with Prof. Hamdi Tchelepi.
Matt Bigler
Matt was a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Science (2018-2023), co-advised by Prof. Mark Brusseau. He PhD work focused on using column and core experiments to investigate air-water interfacial area and PFAS transport in soils. Matt is now with Geosyntec Consultants.
Mica Jarocki
Mica was a Master of Science student in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences (2021-2023), co-advised by Prof. Ty Ferre. Her research focused on using machine learning methods to present water fluxes in the vadose zone based on other readily available measurements including soil moisture and water pressure. Mica now works at Jacobs Engineering.
Alyssa Burritt
Alyssa was a master's student of the Applied Mathematics Program (2020-2021). She received a Master of Science degree in Applied Mathematics and is now a staff research scientist at PING.
Li Zhang
Li was a visiting PhD student in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences (2018-2020). She completed her PhD in the State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry in Guangzhou, China. Her PhD research focused on understanding and quantifying the pore structures and flow and transport processes in unconventional shale formations using both high-resolution imaging and pore-scale modeling approaches.
