The North Dakota Water Resources Research Institute has announced its Graduate Research Fellowship recipients for 2019-2020. The fellowships, ranging from $1,500 to $13,440, were awarded to 15 graduate students, including nine doctoral and six master’s degree students. They will conduct water resources research at NDSU and the University of North Dakota.
Fellows, their academic programs, university, faculty advisers and research projects are:
• Erika Olson, natural resource management, NDSU, Christina Hargiss, Understanding e. coli and water quality in stormwater retention and detention basins in Fargo as part of the Red River watershed
• Mohammad Hadi Bazrkar, civil and environmental engineering, NDSU, Xuefeng Chu, Drought identification and prediction for cold climate regions
• Hakan Kadioglu, agricultural and biosystems engineering/natural resource management, NDSU, Halis Simsek, Effect of different water table levels on canola growth and quality parameters
• Hoang Nu Kim Pham, civil and environmental engineering/environmental and conservation science, NDSU, Achintya Bezbaruah, Application of green iron nanoparticles synthesized using barley polyphenols to combat lake eutrophication
• Jiyang Zhang, earth system science and policy, UND, Haochi Zheng, Evaluation of the costs between devils lake flooding adaptations and Sheyenne River salinity damages resulted from Devils Lake outlet operations
• Justin Waraniak, biological sciences/environmental and conservation sciences, NDSU, Craig Stockwell, Natural and anthropogenic landscape effects on amphibians in the northern Great Plains: Genetic population structure, connectivity, and local adaptation in northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens)
• Lan Zeng, civil and environmental engineering, NDSU, Xuefeng Chu, Development of a puddle-based-unit oriented SWAT (SWAT-PBU) model and its application in North Dakota
• Mathew Cox, civil engineering, UND, Yeo Howe Lim, Developing design guidelines for spur dikes in curved trapezoidal channels based on a validated two-dimensional HEC-RAS model
• Matthew Tuftedal, atmospheric sciences, UND, David Delene, Precipitation evaluation of the North Dakota Cloud Modification Project (NDCMP) using rain gauge observations
• Pavankumar Challa Sasi, civil engineering, UND, Feng “Frank” Xiao, Enhanced removal of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances from water
• Rebecca Bradley, biological sciences, NDSU, Matthew Smith, Influence of wetland water quality on amphibian stress and reproductive success in eastern North Dakota
• Talon Mack, agricultural and biosystems engineering, NDSU, Xinhua Jia, Using UAV and thermal imaging to determine soil moisture in Red River Valley
• Tong Lin, agricultural and biosystems engineering/environmental and conservation sciences, NDSU, Zhulu Lin, Water resources impacts and management in the Bakken region of western North Dakota
• Tonoy K Das, civil and environmental engineering/environmental and conservation science, NDSU, Achintya Bezbaruah, Fabrication of point of use treatment systems for aqueous arsenic and their evaluation
• Zachary Phillips, environmental and conservation sciences/geosciences, NDSU, Stephanie Day, Interdisciplinary approach to understanding fluvial geomorphology of post-glaciolacustrine meandering rivers: A case study of the Red River
A panel of state water resource professionals reviewed the applications and selected the fellows and award amounts. The proposals were prepared by the students with the guidance of their advisers. The general criteria used for proposal evaluation include scientific merit, originality of research, research related to the state water resources issues and extent of state or local collaboration or co-funding.
Funding for the fellowship program comes primarily from the annual 104(B) base grant provided to the institute by the U.S. Geological Survey and an additional support of approximately 27 percent of the annual base grant comes from the North Dakota State Water Commission. The North Dakota institute is one of 54 institutes, each located in a land-grant institution of each state and territory under the umbrella organization of National Institutes for Water Resources.
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