Hydrology News from UT: Late Summer 2021

August 12, 2021

Blasts from the Past

The first “blast from the past” is from 2011: Fred Oliver (BS, 1951) presents the Oliver Lecturer plaque to Peter Lichtner.

The third “blast from the past” is from 1984: the West Texas field trip

Note from the GSA

About 1/5 of all new GSA student members list hydrogeology as their interest and about the same percentage list environmental as their interest (GSA Today, 2021)

Awards

Rebecca Nunu (BS, 2016) received the UTSA Outstanding Thesis Award. This award is for the top thesis submitted in 2020 in the College of Sciences at UTSA and recognizes outstanding and innovative work by MS students. Rebecca studied San Solomon Spring in Balmorhea State Park and five other springs within a 10-mile radius in Balmorhea, Texas. These six springs, collectively known as Balmorhea Springs, are a multi-outlet spring system. Her thesis titled “Using Geochemical and Statistical Analyses to Identify Local and Regional Flow to a Multi-Outlet Spring System: San Solomon Springs, Texas, USA” focused on understanding from where these six springs are fed (or recharged).

Rebecca is employed at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio. She and Marylynn Musgrove (PhD, 2000; MA, 1993) are hosting Topical Session T30 “Using Hydrochemistry to Conceptualize Relations between Recharge and Discharge in Karst Aquifers” at the 2021 GSA Annual Meeting in Portland.

Jack Sharp (emeritus facility) received the 2021 Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois Department of Geology.

Alumni & Faculty News

• Tyler Arrington (BS, 2008) is Senior Geologist with InControl Technologies in Houston.
• Bayani Cardenas (faculty) is currently staying cool conducting research on Alaska’s north slope.
• Sasha Carter (PhD, 2008) teaches at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, California.
• Lane Cockrell (BS, 2017) is Consulting Hydrogeologist for Southwestern Travis County Groundwater Conservation District.
• Jennifer (Denbow) Kennedy (BS, 2007) is now in the tech sector as a program manager for a software development start up in Austin.
• Todd Halihan (PhD, 2000) is a professor at the Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State University. Todd and Martha recently hosted a birthday party in honor of Henry Darcy’s 218th Birthday (Darcy, the father of quantitative hydrogeology, was born on 10 June 1803 in Dijon, France.
• Luisa Florez (BS, 2017) is an environmental engineer with BP in Houston. She also volunteers with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers working to increase the number of Latinx students that pursue and complete advanced degrees.
• Franz Hiebert (PhD, 1994; MA, 1988).is working on a site along the coast in east Texas with numerous deep waste injection wells. Franz is with Roux Associates in Austin.
• Michael Kanarek (MS, 2013) is a PG is with Weston Solutions in New Hampshire working on a new stack testing draft methodology that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to measure PFAS in air emissions. Brooke Kopecky (BS, 2019) is the Junior Environmental Coordinator at ABEI ENERGY in Austin. .She works mainly with County officials and Environmental Consultants to handle the permitting of utility scale solar farms, making sure that environmental studies and due are diligence completed before applying for the permits.
• Ben Linhoff (MS, 2008) is with the U.S. Geological Survey.
• Katherine McGlaughlin (BS, 2016) is with the TCEQ in Austin.
• Kyle Meyer (MS, 2012) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Portland State University.
• Ryan Parks (BS, 2002) is with Lafitte Parks, PLLC, in Houston.
• Lauren Petty (BS, 2006) is the Groundwater Supervisor at the Georgia Power Company.
• Roman Pineda (BS, 2000) is a Senior Geologist with KFW Engineers & Surveying in San Antonio specializing in karst and environmental issues. He also teaches physics part-time at Trinity University. Sarah Rios (BS, 2016) is a Front End Developer at Cognitive Space in Houston.
• Adam Schopper (BS, 2015) is Workover Engineer III with Apache Corporation.
• Rainer Senger (PhD, 1989; MA, 1983) is Head of Swiss Branch at INTERA Incorporated in Zürich, Switzerland.
• Jennifer Wilson (MS, 2001; BS, 1995) is with the U.S. Geological Survey in Austin.
• Brad Wolaver (PhD, 2008; BS, 1995) is with Southwest Hydrology Consulting in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Lost Alumni

Dr. Sharp does not have email addresses for the following alums from the 2006 hydrogeology field methods class (if you have a contact email for any of them, please let him know): Sneha Bhaktia, David Chumreonert, Andrew Hernandez, Calvin Kwong, and Erin Prante

Notes on Newsletter Distribution

If you have news that you would like to share, please email them to Jack Sharp: jmsharp@jsg.utexas.edu

If you would like to cease receiving these newsletters, please let Dr. Sharp know, and he will strike your name off the email lists. If you know a friend or alum who is not receiving these, but would like to, please let Dr. Sharp know and will shoot a copy to them.

Note: Dr. Sharp is emeritus and these newsletters now come out more irregularly and not nearly monthly as has been done since 1985, barring sabbatical and research leaves.