UCOWR recognizes nine award categories: Warren A. Hall Medal, Early Career Award for Applied Research, Early Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement, Mid-Career Award for Applied Research, Mid-Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement, Friends of UCOWR, Education and Public Service Award, Ph.D. Dissertation Award, and JCWRE Paper of the Year. Recipients are nominated by UCOWR delegates and are recognized during the Awards Banquet at the Annual Conference. Awards may not be given if no nominations were submitted or a deserving recipient was not identified.
Click the links below to zoom to the current award recipients.
Congratulations to all awardees!
Warren A. Hall Medal Recipient
Early Career Award for Applied Research
Early Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement
Mid-Career Award for Applied Research
Mid-Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement
Education and Public Service Award
Ph.D. Dissertation Award Recipients
2026 Warren A. Hall Medal Recipient
Dr. Marcelo H. Garcia (born April 22, 1959, Córdoba, Argentina) holds the M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Endowed Chair of Civil Engineering and serves as Director of the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990. Prior to UIUC, was a Research Fellow (1988-89) at St. Anthony Falls Hydraulic Laboratory, University of Minnesota, where he completed his graduate studies (MSCE’85, PhD’89) in Civil Engineering. In 2001, he was named an Honorary Professor at his alma mater, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina, from where he obtained a Diploma in Water Resources Engineering. Recognized with a Doctorate Honoris Causa from National University of Cordoba, Argentina. Recipient of the 2026 Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring and the Tau Beta Pi Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award from the Grainger College of Engineering at UIUC. Member of the National Academy of Engineering.
2026 Early Career Award for Applied Research
Dr. Briana Wyatt earned her Ph.D. at Oklahoma State University in 2019 and joined Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in 2020. Her research and teaching programs focus on soil and environmental physics. The goal of these efforts is to equip students, fellow researchers, land and water managers, and the public to better steward the increasingly threatened soil and water resources of our planet. At Texas A&M University, Dr. Wyatt has mentored eight graduate students (5 Ph.D., 3 M.S.). She has published 29 peer-reviewed papers and earned $1.9M in funding for her research program, including a 2024 NSF CAREER award. Dr. Wyatt’s research program has had local, state, and national impacts in soil and environmental physics, with projects focused on soil moisture monitoring, land-atmosphere interactions, impacts of land cover change on groundwater recharge, and the development of seasonal streamflow forecasts.
2026 Early Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement
Dr. Debabrata (Deb) Sahoo is an Associate Professor and Sustainable Water Resources Extension Specialist in the Agricultural Sciences Department and South Carolina Water Resources Center, Clemson University, since 2020. A registered Professional Engineer in South Carolina and a Certified Professional Hydrologist, he spent over a decade in the private sector addressing stormwater and water quality challenges for local governments, contributing to projects totaling over $40 million. His research and Extension programs focus on water quality, nutrient dynamics, HABs, and high-frequency sensor applications in ponds, lakes, and lower-order streams. He integrates field observations, experiments, and modeling across scales. Dr. Sahoo has secured more than $5 million in competitive funding, published 34 peer-reviewed articles, 15 Extension articles, four book chapters, 13 technical reports, and delivered 140+ presentations. He has conducted 37+ workshops and 15+ field days, provided 10,000+ PDHs, trained 1,300+ professionals, and serves in leadership and editorial roles.
2026 Mid-Career Award for Applied Research
Dr. Ali Mirchi is an Associate Professor of Water Resources Engineering in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, and serves as Associate Director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Center at Oklahoma State University (OSU). His interdisciplinary water resources research program and outreach efforts have guided water policies and management interventions to support sustainable food, feed, and fiber production amid mounting challenges posed by urbanization, irrigation expansion, fragile ecosystems, and hydrologic intensification. He has received OSU’s Ferguson College of Agriculture’s James A. Whatley Award for Meritorious Research in Agricultural Sciences, the American Water Resources Association’s Icko Iben Multidisciplinary Communications Award, and the Early Career Award for Applied Research from the UCOWR. Dr. Mirchi holds a PhD in civil engineering from Michigan Technological University, a Master’s in water resources engineering from Lund University, and a BS in civil engineering-water resources from the University of Tabriz.
2026 Mid-Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement
No award recipient
2026 Friends of UCOWR Recipient
No award recipient
2026 Education and Public Service Award Recipient
No award recipient
2026 Ph.D. Dissertation Award Recipients
Natural Science & Engineering Category
Dr. 
Deep Shah earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Texas A&M University, under the guidance of Dr. Huilin Gao. His dissertation, “Leveraging Satellite Remote Sensing for Understanding Global Reservoir-Based Droughts,” highlights the critical need for global water reservoir datasets that are often not shared or accessible. His research focuses on developing a global, open-access, operational reservoir product using satellite remote sensing and leveraging it to improve the understanding of reservoir droughts. His work focuses on identifying reservoirs that are at higher risk of water shortages, along with their natural and anthropogenic drivers. These insights are vital for improving water management policies and strengthening food and water security worldwide. Dr. Shah also received the Distinguished Dissertation Award and the Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research, as well as third place in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition at Texas A&M University.
Natural Science & Engineering Category – Honorable Mention
Dr. Rohini Gupta is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Steinschneider Lab at Cornell University. She completed her B.S in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 and her M.S. (2019) and Ph.D (2024) at Cornell University in Reed Research Group. Her research interests center around robust operations and decision making in water resources planning and management. Her postdoctoral work develops deep learning and explainable AI models to generate new insights and datasets that support regional water systems planning. This builds on her doctoral research, which integrated hydrology, dendrochronology, and complex systems modeling to characterize past and future hydroclimate hazards in the Western U.S., examine their interactions with water infrastructure systems, and identify strategies to build resilience.
Water Policy & Economics Category
Dr. AB Siddik is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research explores the coupled dynamics of water, energy, and environmental systems, focusing on how human and digital infrastructures shape resilience and sustainability. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Virginia Tech, where his dissertation examined how societal water demands extend beyond local watersheds through interbasin transfers and the water-energy nexus. His work developed comprehensive datasets and modeling frameworks that reveal connections between water and energy users and their source watersheds, uncovering environmental vulnerabilities across interconnected basins. With research experience across multiple U.S. National Laboratories — including contributions to a U.S. Congressional report — Dr. Siddik brings a strong science-policy interface to his work. At ORNL, he advances environmental informatics and large-scale hydrologic modeling, building decision-support tools that inform adaptation strategies balancing ecological integrity, water security, and energy reliability.
Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education Paper of the Year 2026
“Pluvial Flood Damage Exposure in a Midwestern Metropolitan Watershed: Further Evidence of the Prevalence of Commercial Flood Risk”
JCWRE Volume 182, Issue 1
April 30, 2025
Authors: Steven D. Shultz
