Staff Profile: Paula Sturdevant Rees

Paula Sturdevant Rees is the director of the UMass Amherst Water Resources Research Center (WRRC). She helps the campus community by helping educate students to work in the field of water resources. On April 7, WRRC will put on the sixth annual Water Resources Research Conference at UMass Amherst.

WRRC supports research, education, and outreach on water resource issues of state, regional, and national importance. Its main objectives are to conduct research responsive to state and regional needs; to support the education and training of students as water resources professionals; and to disseminate research results to appropriate users.

Rees is also Director of Education and Outreach Programs for the UMass Amherst Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA), a multi-sector partnership among academia, industry, and government dedicated to engineering revolutionary weather-sensing networks. These innovative networks are expected to save lives and property by detecting the region of the lower atmosphere below the current conventional radar range -- mapping storms, winds, rain, temperature, humidity, and the flow of airborne hazards. CASA is a National Science Foundation Engineering Center with over $40 million in federal, university, industry, and state funding.

Among the water center’s projects are the Massachusetts Water Watch Partnership, which provides technical assistance to volunteer lake and river associations in protecting and remediating water quality problems, and the Acid Rain Monitoring Project.

Rees became director of the WRRC in 2007. From 1999 until 2008, she was Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst. Her main professional interest is surface water monitoring and modeling. An example of this is using computers to simulate how a river will respond to pollution, or to being cleaned up. She is also interested in sediment transport, rainfall-runoff processes, and flash-flood prediction.

“I’m currently studying the Blackstone River,” she said. “It starts in Worcester, Mass. and ends in Providence, R.I.” The Blackstone River Valley is a National Heritage Corridor. The river was once so polluted that almost nothing could live in it. It is now much cleaner. Experts say it may be safe for fishing and swimming by 2015.

Rees grew up in Davenport, Iowa. She did her undergraduate work at the Univ. of Iowa and earned her PhD at Princeton. She first got interested in rivers and water issues as an undergrad. “I like working on the environment because it’s tangible – you can go out into it and be part of it,” Rees said.

Rees said her favorite part of being director of the Water Resources Research Center is getting to look at the big picture. “I have the most fun getting to know all the cool things individuals are working on,” she said. “I like trying to see how we can bring their work together to create something good.”

Rees can be contacted at rees@ecs.umass.edu or 545-5528.




Staff Profile: Paula Sturdevant Rees Paula Sturdevant Rees is the director of the UMass Amherst Water Resources Research Center (WRRC). She helps the campus community by helping educate students to work in the field of water resources. On April 7, WRRC will put on the sixth annual Water Resources Research Conference at UMass Amherst. WRRC supports research, education, and outreach on water resource issues of state, regional, and national importance. Its main objectives are to conduct research responsive to state and regional needs; to support the education and training of students as water resources professionals; and to disseminate research results to appropriate users. Rees is also Director of Education and Outreach Programs for the UMass Amherst Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA), a multi-sector partnership among academia, industry, and government dedicated to engineering revolutionary weather-sensing networks. These innovative networks are expected to save lives and property by detecting the region of the lower atmosphere below the current conventional radar range -- mapping storms, winds, rain, temperature, humidity, and the flow of airborne hazards. CASA is a National Science Foundation Engineering Center with over $40 million in federal, university, industry, and state funding. Among the water center’s projects are the Massachusetts Water Watch Partnership, which provides technical assistance to volunteer lake and river associations in protecting and remediating water quality problems, and the Acid Rain Monitoring Project. Rees became director of the WRRC in 2007. From 1999 until 2008, she was Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst. Her main professional interest is surface water monitoring and modeling. An example of this is using computers to simulate how a river will respond to pollution, or to being cleaned up. She is also interested in sediment transport, rainfall-runoff processes, and flash-flood prediction. “I’m currently studying the Blackstone River,” she said. “It starts in Worcester, Mass. and ends in Providence, R.I.” The Blackstone River Valley is a National Heritage Corridor. The river was once so polluted that almost nothing could live in it. It is now much cleaner. Experts say it may be safe for fishing and swimming by 2015. Rees grew up in Davenport, Iowa. She did her undergraduate work at the Univ. of Iowa and earned her PhD at Princeton. She first got interested in rivers and water issues as an undergrad. “I like working on the environment because it’s tangible – you can go out into it and be part of it,” Rees said. Rees said her favorite part of being director of the Water Resources Research Center is getting to look at the big picture. “I have the most fun getting to know all the cool things individuals are working on,” she said. “I like trying to see how we can bring their work together to create something good.” Rees can be contacted at rees@ecs.umass.edu or 545-5528.


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