Water Distribution
System Operations
Name |
Address |
Contact Information |
Lindell Ormsbee, |
Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, |
Tel: 859.257.1299
|
Lindell E. Ormsbee, Ph.D., P.E., P.H., D.W.R.E., F.ASCE, F.EWRI holds a Raymond-Blythe Professor Chair in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Ormsbee’s research interests and expertise include hydraulic and water quality modeling of water distribution systems. During the summer of 2008, Dr. Ormsbee served on a special EPA BOSC panel that provided a review and assessment of EPA’s Homeland Security research program. This review included an examination of strategies for the assessment and mitigation of physical, chemical, and biological attacks on critical water supply infrastructure components including elevated storage tanks and water distribution systems. As part of that assignment, Dr. Ormsbee obtained a secret security clearance. Because of Dr. Ormsbee’s wide breadth of expertise in water resources, he holds several leadership positions in water and environmental related centers/institutes at the University of Kentucky:
- Director of the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute
- Associate Director, UK-NIEHS Superfund Research Program
Dr. Ormsbee's current research efforts are directed toward the application of artificial intelligence methods to complex problems in water resources and environmental systems. He is also pursuing research dealing with innovative techniques for disinfection of wet weather discharges. Over the last 26 years, Dr. Ormsbee's research program has helped generate over 35 million dollars in external contracts from such agencies as the National Science Foundation, NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Dr. Ormsbee is an international expert in water distribution system modeling and is co-author of several distribution network related computer programs and handbooks. Since 1983, Dr. Ormsbee has conducted over 100 technical short courses for professional engineers dealing with water distribution system analysis. Dr. Ormsbee has also provided technical guidance to several large water systems across the United States including Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Kansas City, Kansas; and Washington D.C. In 1988, Dr. Ormsbee conducted a reliability assessment of the Federally Owned Water Main System (serving Washington Reagan National Airport, the Pentagon, and Fort Myer) and provided recommendations for increasing the hydraulic redundancy and reliability of the system.
In 1988, Dr. Ormsbee served as the co-chair for the first International Symposium on Computer Modeling of Water Distribution Systems in Lexington, Kentucky. From 1988-1991 he served as chair of an ASCE task committee on the optimal operation of water distribution systems. In 1991, Dr. Ormsbee was one of a select group of researchers invited to participate in the first AWWA Research Foundation/EPA Workshop on Water Quality Modeling in Distribution Systems. Dr. Ormsbee served as the conference chair for the 1995 American Water Works Association International Computer Conference and was the recipient of the 1997 Best Paper Award (dealing with water distribution modeling calibration) by the Engineering and Construction Division of AWWA. Dr. Ormsbee is co-author of two chapters in the recently published McGraw Hill/AWWA Water Distribution Systems Handbook as well as Chapter 7 (Advances and Trends in Network Modeling) in M32. The AWWA Manual of Water Supply Practices for Computer Modeling of Water Distribution Systems. In 2002, he was invited to present a paper summarizing the history of water distribution modeling at the ASCE 150th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C. From 2005-2007 he served as the chair of the EWRI Emerging and Innovative Technologies Committee. In 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Service to the Profession Award by the Water Resources Planning and Management Council of the ASCE Environmental and Water Resources Institute.
Name |
Address |
Contact Information |
L. Sebastian Bryson |
University of Kentucky |
Tel: 859.257.3247 |
Scott Yost |
University of Kentucky |
Tel: 859.257.4816 |
Andrew N.S. Ernest |
University of Alabama |
Tel: 205-348-0741 |
Robert E. Reed |
University of Missouri |
Tel: 573.884.6162 |
James G. Uber |
University of Cincinnati |
Tel: 513.556.3643 |
Dominic Boccelli |
University of Cincinnati |
Tel: (513) 375-6901 |
L. Sebastian Bryson, Ph.D., P.E. is an Associate Professor in the UK Department of Civil Engineering specializing in Geotechnical Engineering. His areas of expertise are performance of civil infrastructure, numerical modeling, sensors used for civil infrastructure monitoring, and evaluating infrastructure response to severe events. Most recently, Dr. Bryson has performed research involving three-dimensional static and dynamic numerical analyses of nonlinear systems. Prior to that research, Dr. Bryson completed proof-of-concept research that evaluated the short-term and long-term stability of a foundation system subjected to blast loading. In this effort, Dr. Bryson supervised research which culminated in a Master’s thesis on this topic entitled “Shallow Foundation Systems Response to Blast Loading.” Dr. Bryson is currently performing research to establish a proof-of-concept for the use of ubiquitous wireless MEMS accelerometers to measure deformation and vibration in civil infrastructure. At one time, Dr. Bryson worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a research engineer investigating flow through porous media. Dr. Bryson is a registered professional engineer in the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.
Scott Yost, Ph.D., P.E. is an Associate Professor in the UK Department of Civil Engineering specializing in Hydraulic Engineering. His areas of expertise include physical and numerical modeling of hydraulic systems. Research interests include Parallel Computational Fluid Mechanics with particular emphasis on numerical solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in free surface flow, transport processes in surface water systems and general algorithmic improvements utilizing advanced mathematical or computational techniques. Besides advanced numerical modeling, he also has considerable experience in physical modeling where he has performed/directed numerous scale model studies of pump stations and intake structures. He also has related experience in parameter estimation and optimization techniques and hydrologic modeling of watersheds. Dr. Yost is a registered professional engineer in Kentucky.
Andrew N.S. Ernest, Ph.D., P.E., BCEE, earned a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1985 and in 1986 respectively, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University in 1991. He has over 20 years of professional experience in Environmental and Water Resource engineering, having managed a variety of organizational units with varying missions, encompassing consulting, academic, revenue-driven, research and service activities. Dr. Ernest currently serves as the Director of the Environmental Institute of the University of Alabama is a Principal Engineer with Ernest and Sons Civil and Environmental Engineering consultants and a proponent of the principles of Open Engineering. He is also president of Open Engineering, LLC, a company which focuses on the development of decision support systems for the water supply industry. He is a licensed engineer in Kentucky and Texas, and is a Board Certified Environmental Engineer through the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, with specialty certification in Water and Wastewater.
Dr. Ernest has technical experience in water resource management (stormwater management - NPDES Task II regional approach, total maximum daily loads, coordinated impairment verification & model support monitoring, water quality modeling - dissolved oxygen, pathogens, eutrophication, best management plans), regional environmental sustainability (brownfields redevelopment, sustainable technologies for small communities, on-site wastewater treatment, systems modeling, information management, decision systems) and hazardous substance/superfund (oil spill bioremediation, contaminated sediments bauxite tailings management) projects. His current technical focus is on applications of informatics to environmental decision making - environmental information systems, environmental modeling, decision support systems, surface and subsurface water quality modeling, model parameter estimation and process optimization, rural public health, on-site wastewater treatment, and environmental management systems. He has directed the research of over 40 M.S. and Ph.D. students, managed over $20 M in projects, coordinated and served as prime contractor on large-scale multi-organization/multi-sector collaborative efforts, and has extensive business and project development (solicited and unsolicited) experience both in the academic/research and private sector/consulting arenas.
Robert Reed, P.E., Ph.D. is a Research Associate Professor in the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Missouri. Dr. Reed has been involved with water and wastewater utilities for more than 40 years. His academic and professional work has included water supply system planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance planning and consulting, utility management, utility regulation including codes and ordinances, economic analysis and finance, distribution system modeling and remote sensing and control (utilizing SCADA systems), local responses to contaminants and threats, and security of treatment, storage and distribution systems. He has been a licensed water and wastewater operator. His academic specialty is water utility operations management and water treatment chemistry. He recently assisted with the development of the University of Missouri’s water utility board training program. With this broad background, he understands and provides consultations and input on a variety of decision making tools, and training in decision-making in water supply operations and management.
James Uber, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Engineering, and joined the University of Cincinnati (UC) in 1990. He has served as the Director of the Environmental Engineering Division, and is currently the Co-Director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Engineering. Dr. Uber is an authority on the development of systems analysis and modeling approaches, and their application to urban water infrastructure systems. He is internationally known for his work on vulnerability assessment for water distribution system security, and was a developer of the TEVA research program during a 2-year contract with EPA/NHSRC. He has published over 40 articles in refereed Journals and authored or co-authored numerous other conference proceeding publications and research reports. His publications have received three National best paper awards, and he was a finalist for the INFORMS Edelman award. In 2006, Dr. Uber received the ASCE Service to the Profession award for development of tools for improving the design and operation of water distribution systems and in 2009 was designated as a Distinguished Engineering Researcher of the UC College of Engineering. Dr. Uber is the president of CitiLogics LLC, a company dedicated to the implementation of real time modeling in the water supply industry.
Dominic Boccelli, Ph.D. Dr. Boccelli’s is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati. His primary research interests are in the areas of Water Resources, Water Quality, and Environmental Systems Analysis. His research activities are focused on developing decision support tools based on fundamental principles of environmental engineering and science to assist engineers, managers, and policy makers in making technology, design, and regulatory decisions. More explicitly, these tools will incorporate various mathematical modeling and optimization techniques to attain the desired objectives. Additionally, given his academic and research experience, his research will include laboratory and field experiments, where appropriate, to develop an improved understanding of the processes used in the decision making process. This two-pronged research philosophy has arisen from his research and experience in both Environmental Engineering and Chemistry.
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