IIHR Currents 2020

IIHR Currents IIHR—HYDROSCIENCE & ENGINEERING | 2020 – 21

Adapting to the World’s Changing Needs

2020–21 • a

RIGHT: IIHR Director Gabriele Villarini with his daughters, Eleonora and Camilla.

MIDDLE: Craig Just (right) at Carver Hawkeye Arena pre-pandemic with his family, wife Tracy, son Parker, and daughter Michaela (r to l).

FAR RIGHT: IIHR grad student Monica McFadden exploring California’s Lake Tahoe while doing a research internship with the U.S. Geological Survey.

CONTE NTS 1

From the Director

2

Lab Notes

8

Planting the Seed

12

The Germ of an Idea

16

Behind the Scenes

22 Working Hard 23 Propelled into the Future 24 Staying Afloat 27

Advisory Board/Mission, Vision, and Value

28 Financials 29 Parting Shot

Follow IIHR, the Iowa Flood Center, and the Iowa Geological Survey on social media.

Director of Development and Communications Carmen Langel Editor/Writer Jacqueline Hartling Stolze Design Benson & Hepker Design Photographer Aneta Goska On the Cover A thunderstorm approaches campus. Photo by Tim Schoon, staff photographer (University of Iowa)

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Keep Calm and Carry On I hear a lot of talk these days about what a difficult year 2020 was. A well-known quote from Winston Churchill seems fitting under the circumstances, and it makes me smile: “If you’re going through hell, keep going!”

A sense of humor can be the best armor to see us through hard times. I sincerely hope this finds you and your loved ones safe and well.

As we look back on 2020 through our unique lens as members of the IIHR family, one of the first things we think of is the centennial celebration that didn’t happen — yet. We had big plans and were so looking forward to celebrating together in Iowa City in 2020! However, protecting our people from COVID-19 had to take priority. We haven’t abandoned our plans and we still look forward to seeing you in fall 2022. Details to come!

COVID-19 has changed so much about the way we live — temporarily. While we don’t have the chance to be together in person at work, we’ve been finding other ways to stay close, because we enjoy being together so much! In the early months of the pandemic, we used our IIHR Weekly Update internal emails to share a little bit of ourselves. Each week, we selected a different theme and asked our people to share a photo and a brief description based on that theme. These themes ranged from vacation photos to the car that was more than just transportation. People participated with great enthusiasm and shared some amazing photos!

It was a fun way to get to know each other a little bit better, even when we’re isolated and far apart.

From the Director

I’m especially impressed with the way our researchers have stepped up to conduct research relevant to the pandemic. This reflects IIHR’s time-honored tradition of adapting to meet society’s needs as events unfold. You can read about a few of these projects in the pages of this magazine.

In May, the tragic death of George Floyd brought civil unrest nationwide, including here in Iowa City. These events refocused our attention on the essential issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We must continue working to build the society we want, where every person enjoys the same respect and opportunities. IIHR is always striving to be a place where everyone feels respected, valued, and heard. Our institutions, and each of us as individuals, must look deep within ourselves and make changes where necessary to our conduct and attitudes. Diversity, equity, and inclusion should be more than just a phrase — rather, it must be an integral part of the way we live.

The year 2020 also brought new financial challenges for IIHR. In September, we learned of a significant change in the institute’s fiscal agreement with the university. For decades, the Facilities and Administration (F&A) portion of our grant funding came to IIHR in full. This helped to fuel our research programs and gave us a strong foundation for success. However, this year, the university and the College of Engineering will manage these F&A funds.

The details of this transition are still being worked out. I remain optimistic for the future of IIHR because of the resilience, quality, and character of our people. We will share more details as they become available.

I am so proud of the way we have responded to the many challenges of 2020, and particularly to COVID-19. We have always been curious and especially attentive to what’s happening around us. The unfailing perseverance and hard work of our people, along with their consistent good cheer, buoys me up and helps me carry on. It speaks to their ingenuity and talent — when faced with adversity, they’re able to turn what is arguably a terrible situation into an opportunity to make society better.

All of this leads me back to the quote from Winston Churchill — we will keep going. At IIHR, we’ve been successful, not because of luck, but because of the solid foundations on which IIHR was built. I give significant credit to the institute’s previous directors, who created an environment that fostered a shared sense of excellence and a deep feeling of belonging.

I also credit the dedication of our current faculty and staff, many of whom have been with us for decades, and the support I get from the entire IIHR community, including our advisory board, alumni, students, and friends Best wishes,

Gabriele Villarini Director, IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering Robert and Virginia Wheeler Faculty Fellow in Engineering Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering 2020–21 • 1

Overheard “You’ll always be welcomed home here at IIHR.” — IIHR DIRECTOR GABRIELE VILLARINI TO IIHR ALUMNA YIBING SU, WHO SPOKE AT THE AUGUST 19, 2020, IOWA FLOOD CENTER MEETING

“Iowa really knows. They’ve modeled and mapped the state, they have great data visualization tools, and they have really effective outreach and communication. To really have a complete flood approach, you have to do all of those things.”

— SAM MARIE HERMITTE, TEXAS WATER DEVELOPMENT BOARD, DURING A FACT-FINDING VISIT TO THE IOWA FLOOD CENTER, IN THE GAZETTE, JAN. 8, 2020

“I will cherish this issue for the rest of my life.”

— IIHR ALUMNUS JOHN LOUIS VADNAL, ON THE CENTENNIAL ISSUE OF IIHR CURRENTS

“Considering the current state of the world, the inclusion of the 1918 flu epidemic in the timeline was eerie to me.”

— IIHR ALUMNUS BRICE STAFNE, ON THE WORLD EVENTS TIMELINE IN IIHR CURRENTS

“Opened up my copy of the IIHR Currents this am to the new issue on ‘Celebrating Our Centennial.’ What a beautiful publication! Congrats to all.”

— ROBERT R. TWILLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOUISIANA SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM

“The party is just getting bigger!”

— IIHR DIRECTOR GABRIELE VILLARINI, ON THE RESCHEDULED BIG SPLASH!, AUGUST 26–28, 2022

“Climate change has arrived. It’s becoming more visible, more obvious each year. And it’s touching us all.”

— CONNIE MUTEL, RETIRED IIHR SENIOR SCIENCE WRITER, IN GAZETTE OP-ED, OCT. 7, 2020

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Lab Notes Get Ready for the IIHR Centennial + 2!

IIHR marked its 100th birthday in 2020, but the global pandemic forced the institute to postpone most of the festivities until 2022. Last October, however, we got a taste of what we can look forward to. Hancher Auditorium, co-organizer of The Big Splash!, created “Hancher Illuminated,” a program of socially distanced performances, enchantingly illuminating the building and grounds and setting up ingenious performance and viewing spaces.

Quixotic, one of our partner organizations collaborating on The Big Splash!, designed an array of spots outside the building highlighting UI student performers. Get ready to see more like this in 2022!

And for now, you can whet your appetite with videos of the event at https://hancher.uiowa.edu/2020-21/hancher-illuminated

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IIHR’s Ricardo Mantilla (left) and Casey Harwood created a series of lab videos for students taking classes remotely.

‘Wicked Cool’ Lab Videos Some 60 years after IIHR Director Hunter Rouse created a groundbreaking series of educational films on fluid dynamics, two IIHR faculty members have followed his lead.

“Casey and I share Rouse’s commitment to top-notch fluids education for our students. The videos made it possible for students to experience laboratory research even during the pandemic.”

— RICARDO MANTILLA, FLUID DYNAMICS CO-TEACHER

As co-teachers of the University of Iowa College of Engineering’s Fluid Dynamics course in fall 2020, Ricardo Mantilla and Casey Harwood wanted to help remotelearning students experience the labs they would normally have been able to do in person. Harwood and Mantilla produced a series of videos in the college’s new fluids lab covering three experiments: Measurement of Fluid Properties; Finite Control Volumes; and Flow in Pipes.

“IIHR has a decades-long commitment to fluids education,” Mantilla says. “You can see that in the fluids lab itself, which features refurbished, modernized versions of some of the classic educational experiments designed by Hunter Rouse. Casey and I share Rouse’s commitment to top-notch fluids education for our students. The videos made it possible for students to experience laboratory research even during the pandemic.”

In anonymous course evaluations, students said they appreciated the effort to give them the lab experience through the instructional videos. “The lab videos created were wicked cool,” one student wrote. Another said, “The way remote labs were conducted this semester helped me to understand more of the complex topics we learned this semester, even though I wasn’t actually there.”

The videos were produced with support from IIHR and the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.

The films are available on the IIHR YouTube Channel: 4 • IIHR C U RRENTS

https://tinyurl.com/yx9rhrlv

Lab Notes Demanding Change: Everyone’s Work In 2020, the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers reawakened Americans to the need for action against entrenched, systemic racism in all sectors of our society. Responses nationwide have been swift and numerous, as many Americans demand social justice.

of Iowa Leadership for Diversity) program, the university offers free courses on implicit bias, cultivating an inclusive classroom, and other aspects of DEI. Vigmostad is proud to see her faculty colleagues asking how they can support the social justice movement in their classrooms and research programs.

At the University of Iowa College of Engineering, IIHR’s Sarah Vigmostad has taken on a leadership role for the college’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council.

Vigmostad, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, co-chairs the group of faculty, students, and staff with Senior Human Resources Director Cathy Koebrick.

In her own classroom, Vigmostad participated in #ScholarStrike, talking with her students about structural racism and health inequities, as well as sharing current challenges with algorithmic bias in machine learning. She was encouraged and moved by the response. “Students reached out throughout the rest of the semester to tell me they were still thinking about what we’d discussed. It was a great opportunity to show students some of the ways that, as engineers, our work can impact society either positively or negatively — technology is not immune to racism, and thinking otherwise is dangerous.”

Vigmostad understands the urgency to make progress. “It feels so important,” she says. “How can we leverage our best intentions and have a positive impact on the experiences of every one of our students, faculty, and staff?” Vigmostad says the council’s vision is that of a vibrant, diverse college community where each student, faculty, and staff member is welcomed, supported, and valued for their unique contributions and perspective.

The council is urging all members of the COE community to learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion and how we can each support social justice. For instance, through the BUILD (Building University

Vigmostad’s hope is that the council can help leverage, connect, and build upon DEI efforts taking place in individual departments, centers, or classrooms.

She is glad to play a role but knows she can’t do it alone. “This is everyone’s work.”

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Dancehall Cave Maquoketa Caves State Park offers one of Iowa’s most adventurous hikes and a chance to explore some of the state’s geological wonders. Learn more about Iowa parks, Iowa geology, and the Iowa Geological Survey (IGS) on the new IGS website: https://iowageologicalsurvey.org Photo by IIHR photographer Aneta Goska

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Planting the Seed: Connecting with the Land and Local History In Iowa, we hear a lot about the rural-urban divide. Where we live can color our work, our social lives, our politics, and even our perceptions of ourselves and our neighbors.

But near Iowa City, there’s a place for all Iowans, where urban and rural meet in a unique and productive way — the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm.

BY JA CQU E L I N E H ART L IN G STOL ZE

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A small tour group stands on a strip of grass on a sunny, windy fall day. The grass whips in the wind, changing shape and color in a never-ending pattern. A nearby pollinator meadow hums with butterflies, moths, bees, and wasps. Not far away, vegetable plots bulge with dark green and orange produce, waiting to be harvested. A venerable barn keeps watch over the whole operation.

After more than a century of providing a home for people in need, the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm (JCHPF) is full of new life. Its modern mission is to provide a public space for connecting with the land and local history through inclusive, community-led opportunities.

A N U N D E R G R O UND WE TL AND

Drive down any country road in Iowa, and you’ll likely see plenty of grassed waterways.

It’s one of the most common, best accepted soil conservation practices in the state. These strips of grass serve as stable channels for the flow of runoff in erosion-prone areas.

But this one, at the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm, is different.

IIHR researcher Craig Just, who is also an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa, is leading a tour of conservation projects at the poor farm. He lifts the top of a box-like structure that opens onto a vertical shaft plunging about four feet into the earth. Known as agriculture drainage water management (or conservation drainage), the structure taps into the existing tile line.

The tile line flows into a water-control structure with adjustable slats inside to control the flow, storage, and release of the connected tile system. Adjustable slats or “weirs” allow the farmer to raise or lower the water table depending on the conditions.

“It’s kind of like an underground wetland,” Just explains. “In a drought year, you can bank water and slowly release it.” Conservation drainage also supports improved water quality by reducing unnecessary tile drainage.

Just gives the credit for this reactive grassed waterway to his colleague, Iowa Geological Survey (IGS) researcher Keith Schilling, who developed the practice.

Its implementation here for research and demonstration allows study of its

“It’s kind of like an underground wetland.

In a drought year, you can bank water and slowly release it.”

— CRAIG JUST, IIHR RESEARCHER

effectiveness for crop management and water-quality improvement.

CON N E CT IN G WIT H TH E L AN D

The Johnson County Historic Poor Farm is set on the west edge of Iowa City, on the boundary between city and farm.

It’s a welcoming setting for exchanges about conservation, soil health, local food production, and much more.

Johnson County officials established the JCHPF in 1855 as a home for Iowans with mental illness, disabilities, or financial problems. At the time, it was widely thought that hard work and fresh air were beneficial for the “poor unfortunates” who lived there because they had nowhere else to go. The farm was expected to be self-supporting, and residents provided much of the labor.

Until recently, row crops dominated the 160-acre farm. A few buildings from the early days survive, such as a barn that provided a home for dairy cows, a smaller white asylum building, and a handful of other structures.

Today, the JCHPF provides a place for Iowans, both rural and urban, to explore their connections with the land and local history.

Jason Grimm is interim executive director of the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development’s (IVRC&D) nonprofit organization, which manages the JCHPF. He was part of the team that helped develop a master plan for the farm, in conjunction with Johnson County and HBK Engineering.

The plan focuses on five goals: local food production, historic preservation, education, recreation, and conservation.

Grimm and his team stayed on to help implement the plan. IVRC&D also rents five acres of land for Grow Johnson County, which plants, harvests, and freely distributes about 2020–21 • 9

30,000 pounds of fresh vegetables every year.

This free produce helps support Johnson County food pantries, meal programs, daycare centers, and more.

JCHPF also offers a place for aspiring farmers to learn about different farming practices through apprenticeships and workshops. They can even rent a few acres to get their farming operations started.

CO N N E CT I O N S AND CO N VE R S AT I ONS

Just hopes his research will help support that diversity. He’s excited to connect with Iowans, especially farmers, at the JCHPF. “I’m an Iowan,” Just says. “I thought I knew a lot about farming.” Then he realized how often the discussions about conservation and water quality didn’t include any input from farmers themselves.

“How about having conversations with farmers instead of about farmers?” Just asks.

The JCHPF is the perfect place to bridge the gaps between rural and urban Iowans, he says, and to work toward a more unified understanding of the issues we face.

Just leads a research project supported by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) titled “Connecting Rural and Peri-Urban Farmers to Demonstrate and Disseminate Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Practices.” The project focuses exclusively on installation of nitrogenremoving wetlands, ponds, and native vegetation, along with water-quality data collection, to achieve a better understanding of how well they can improve water quality and flood storage. Just says he’s looking forward to many productive conversations with farmers about the usefulness of these practices.

Just credits IIHR’s Kate Giannini for the inspiration to use the JCHPF as a site for the EPA project. “She planted the initial seed,” he says. Giannini is an Iowa Flood Center

staff member who serves as communication specialist for the Iowa Watershed Approach (IWA), a five-year, $97M project that seeks to reduce flooding and improve water quality in nine Iowa watersheds. Previously, she worked as a Johnson County soil and water conservation coordinator. Through her work there, she met Jason Grimm and got involved in transitioning the JCHPF to its new mission.

Just says Giannini’s idea for the poor farm was a stroke of brilliance. The JCHPF’s setting on the border between city and countryside allows him to make connections with the people who live and farm in the watershed.

Just chose several other strategic locations for project demonstration sites, all convenient to the people who farm in the watershed as well as their urban neighbors.

It was a win-win as far as Giannini is concerned. As an Iowa City native, Giannini has strong ties to the community. Her grandfather, a local grocer, delivered goods to the poor farm in the 1960s. And working with Grimm on the initial reimagining of the poor farm was, she says, one of the most rewarding projects she has ever worked on. “When this opportunity came up to work out there again, I was ecstatic,” she says.

The project also takes advantage of the partnerships and expertise already in place, thanks to the IWA’s extensive collaboration that includes local government, nonprofits, researchers, educators, and the public.

PARTN E RIN G WIT H BACT E RI A

UI graduate student Emily Schmitz says she appreciates the research opportunities at the JCHPF. Her work focuses on using bacteria to clean up pollution — in this case, nitrate. By understanding where the bacteria survive and why, Schmitz hopes to help develop strategies that favor these bacteria and the clean-up processes they perform.

“I learned a ton and it was a wonderful experience,” Schmitz says. “Everyone I have

“Everyone I have met working on or with the poor farm has been really amazing! The work they are doing is so valuable and important to the community.”

— EMILY SCHMITZ, UI GRADUATE STUDENT 1 0 • I I HR C U RRENTS

TOP: A peek inside a conservation drainage structure.

MIDDLE: UI Graduate student Emily Schmitz studies bacteria that can clean up pollution below ground.

BOTTOM: IIHR researcher Craig Just compares this conservation drainage structure to an “underground wetland.”

met working on or with the poor farm has been really amazing! The work they are doing is so valuable and important to the community.”

She especially appreciated the chance to observe the IGS drill rig in action, putting in groundwater monitoring wells for the EPA project. The wells allow researchers to learn about pollutants in the groundwater and to better regulate tile drainage in support of improved production.

Soon the instrumentation on the farm will also include one of the Iowa Flood Center’s hydrostations, which monitor weather conditions, soil moisture and temperature, humidity, and other variables. The data will be available online in near real time. With this information, Grimm says, they can make better decisions on the farm, and share their methods and data with other stakeholders.

A H OP E FU L F UTUR E

The poor farm tour ends at a stream on the south edge of the property, where a waterquality sensor at the tile outlet provides a continuous flow of data, all displayed online.

This information will allow Just and his team to monitor the results of conservation practices installed at the poor farm.

Dusk is not far off now, and the wind has died back a bit. The darkening shadows cast a slight chill over the group. The stream is not far from an old, unmarked cemetery where more than 300 poor farm residents were buried (the exact number is unknown). It’s a reminder of the lives that were lived here, and for some, ended here.

Yet life goes on at the farm, and progress is taking us to a hopeful future.

In this setting, Just says, the whole project just seems to fit, somehow. He adds, “I go to bed smiling.”

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The Germ of an Idea: Research During a Public Health Emergency

Does Less Pollution Mean Less Precipitation?

NASA-funded study at IIHR explores connections between reduced air pollution due to COVID-19 and decreases in precipitation in the western United States New research at IIHR is studying the connections between reduced air pollution due to COVID-19 shutdowns and sharp decreases in precipitation in the western United States.

The project, funded by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) RAPID grant, will provide information to support water resources management in drought-stricken areas of the West Coast.

When economies shut down due to COVID-19, air quality improved in many areas.

Researchers hypothesize that with fewer particulates or Precipitation that fell during February– aerosols in the March 2020 as a percentage of the base atmosphere, less period 1981–2010. Large areas of the precipitation fell western United States have been unusually in the western dry. Data source: PRISM Climate Data, United States.

Oregon State University In February and 1 2 • I I HR C U RRENTS

Wei Zhang, former IIHR associate research scientist, and Gabriele Villarini, IIHR director

March 2020, precipitation dropped by more than 50%. Water resources managers on the West Coast need to know how this decrease is related to the reduction of aerosols.

Project leader Gabriele Villarini, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of IIHR, wants to understand the extent to which the reduction in aerosols accounts for the decrease in precipitation.

“There are in a sense two drivers,” Villarini said.

“One is the climate system. Some years are drier than others because of natural variability.

The other is the reduced aerosols. What role do they play in explaining the observed lower precipitation amounts?”

It’s also important to know where the particulates (or lack of them) originated, whether remotely (e.g., in China) or locally (e.g., in California). Any policies enacted to mitigate the situation could have different results, depending on the source.

The project team includes former IIHR researcher Wei Zhang and graduate student Zhiqi Yang. They use WRF-CHEM, a comprehensive climate model that can combine atmospheric conditions such as moisture and temperature with chemical properties and processes.

It’s a fascinating project, Villarini says. “It’s high risk, high reward. There is a risk that the model is not going to give us enough insights and the uncertainties are too large. But the payoff, if it works, is pretty remarkable.”

What do engineers know about public health?

Actually, quite a bit.

BY JAC Q U ELI NE HA RTL I N G STO LZ E

IIHR researchers have always adapted their work to help solve the issues of the day. In 2020, COVID-19 was arguably the most pressing problem faced by humanity. Here’s how four IIHR researchers used their expertise to help find solutions and expand our knowledge of the coronavirus.

The Surprising Science of COVID-19 The Drying Time of Droplets Science can take you in surprising directions. Even when the results are not what you expected, they can often be useful, says IIHR Research Engineer H.S. Udaykumar.

“People always think science works on the basis of certainty, but actually, science works at the edge of certainty,” he says.

Udaykumar (known to all as “Uday”), a professor of mechanical engineering, is part of a team conducting COVID-19 research to study how long viruses can survive in droplets that land on different surfaces. An NSF RAPID grant supports the research, which also includes Hongtao Ding, associate professor of mechanical engineering, and two postdocs, Avik Samanta and Pradeep Seshadri.

Initially, Uday says, it was widely thought that the virus was spread primarily through touch. When a sick person coughs or sneezes, they emit droplets containing the virus. Uday and Ding hoped to learn more about how long the virus could live in these droplets, and what effect conditions such as temperature and humidity have on virus survival in droplets.

Ding has long studied how different surface textures can encourage droplets to either stick or slide off — a field of fluid mechanics called superhydrophobicity. Uday had also extensively investigated the fluid mechanics of droplets. When COVID broke, they decided to write a proposal to study the effect of surface textures on the drying time of droplets.

Uday explains that viruses are sensitive to salt concentrations. When droplets dry quickly, the salt concentration intensifies and kills the virus. How quickly a droplet dries depends on the surface conditions and the ambient conditions. Uday wanted to use modeling to

H.S. Udaykumar, IIHR research enigineer

learn if it was possible to optimize surface textures so droplets would dry very quickly.

The science of COVID is evolving rapidly. It turns out that this virus is not primarily spread through touch. Rather, it spreads most often in aerosol form, in droplets “too small to see and too small to land,” Uday says.

Once researchers understood this, the science shifted. It became apparent to Uday and his team that they weren’t studying the primary cause of COVID-19 spread. “However, it’s not a waste because there are lots of other viruses spread by touch, including influenza.”

Creating surfaces that allow droplets to dry quickly and kill viruses is still important, and they continue to work on it.

Protein and salt content inside the “The study droplet delay the drying process. itself is very Surface roughness also influences interesting in the survival time of the droplets. and of itself, Infographic by Avik Samanta and very useful,” Uday says. “It’s not as relevant to COVID-19 as we initially thought. This is the way science works.”

He’s not discouraged or disappointed. “You know,” Uday says, “sometimes the surprises make it fun.”

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The Germ of an Idea:

Research During a Public Health Emergency

Safer Classrooms As researchers work to better understand the virus that causes COVID-19, it’s become clear that airborne transmission is a serious threat, particularly in indoor areas such as classrooms.

Tiny airborne particles as small as 0.5 microns can linger in the air for hours in poorly ventilated spaces, potentially spreading COVID-19. How small are these aerosols? For comparison, a human hair measures about 90 microns in diameter.

IIHR Research Engineer Charles Stanier was part of an effort to learn which classrooms at the University of Iowa (UI) are the best for in-person classes. Stanier, who is also a professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, conducted the project with Professor Tom Peters of public health, as well as colleagues at Facilities Management (FM).

Stanier was a member of the ad hoc ventilation subcommittee, which began thinking about indoor transmission and its relationship to ventilation IIHR’s Charles Stanier wears a respirator in spring of in a practice room at the Voxman Music 2020 to advise Building, where a colleague was playing the university’s the bassoon as a test.

COVID-19 response. Stanier and his colleagues developed scoring systems for university classrooms, a simple test for airflow measurement, and an Airborne Transmission Estimator to determine the relative safety of various classrooms. They used these tools to make recommendations on classroom occupancy level, to provide evidence in favor of a $200,000 filter upgrade 1 4 • I I HR C U RRENTS

Charles Stanier, IIHR research engineer

across campus, and to adjust air flow rates.

The researchers took measurements in about a dozen classrooms to provide data to evaluate and ground-truth their calculations.

The Airborne Transmission Estimator is an Excel spreadsheet that uses input data on air flow, air filters, fresh air, and ventilation.

Stanier says that Jose-Luis Jimenez at the University of Colorado-Boulder developed the estimator they adapted for use at Iowa.

Musicians face special challenges in the time of COVID-19. “Music making from singing, woodwinds, and brass generates tiny particles that are infectious if the player is contagious,” Stanier says. The leaders of the University of Iowa’s School of Music asked Stanier and his team to help develop COVID-19 protocols for the Voxman Music Building return plan, a hybrid model that includes in-person lessons and group performance, while still minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

The ventilation-related protocols Stanier and his colleagues recommended for the Voxman Music Building include: installation of high-performance MERV 13 air filters; increased fresh-air intake and increased exhaust modes wherever possible; and deployment of approved HEPA-filter air purifiers in rooms where potentially infectious aerosols are produced. In addition, protocols regarding vacancy periods for air-scrubbing between students are prominently displayed.

Stanier says he and his team were committed to providing the safest possible environment for students and faculty at the University of Iowa. “I was privileged to work with faculty and staff from across the University of Iowa, as well as the original designers of the HVAC system, to craft recommendations for the Voxman Music Building,” Stanier says. “What went into them? Airflow testing, simulation, thoughtful consideration of emerging research, and (hopefully) common sense.”

A Recipe for Better Masks Wear a mask: This simple advice is one of the most important things we can do to help slow the pandemic. For health care professionals and other frontline workers, masks are even more critical.

IIHR Research Engineer David Cwiertny was thinking of frontline workers when he decided to shift his research from water filtration to air filtration materials for use in masks. Cwiertny, who is also a University of Iowa (UI) professor of civil and environmental engineering, is working with research partners Patrick O’Shaughnessy, an expert on worker safety and health at the UI College of Public Health, and two researchers at the University of Notre Dame: Nosang Myung, a longtime water filtration collaborator; and Kyle Bibby, an expert on the environmental fate of viruses. In addition, graduate student Maddie Jensen is working in the lab to produce materials for O’Shaughnessy to test.

Making the switch from water filters to air filters didn’t initially go quite as smoothly as the researchers had hoped. “We knew we could do it, but we didn’t know how much we’d have to change,” Cwiertny says.

His water treatment filter materials are made up of incredibly tiny fibers with diameters in the hundreds of nanometers (a nanometer equals one billionth of a meter).

For air filtration, they had to make a material that would not only serve as an excellent filter, but that would also allow people to breathe.

“Breathability is the hardest part,” Cwiertny says. The fibers they’re working with now have a diameter about a thousandfold bigger than the water filter fibers.

They’ve also changed the composition of the material. “We’re still fine-tuning our recipe,” Cwiertny says. They want to make a material that’s not only a good filter, but that could also be mass produced.

The new filter material will also do more than just physically capture pathogens or virus that move through the mask, Cwiertny says.

“We’re adding in different types of ingredients that could actually help kill the pathogens when they pass through the filter.” Cwiertny hopes this will lead to better protection for frontline workers.

David Cwiertny, IIHR research engineer

He wishes the new masks were available for use now, but the work takes time. “We will get there,” Cwiertny says. “You want to go as fast as possible, and I wish we were a little bit further along.”

This project is supported by a National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant.

TOP: A scanning electron microscopy close-up of the polystyrene fibers Cwiertny and his colleagues are using.

BOTTOM: Jordan Kaufmann of Iowa Made models a prototype of the mask.

2020–21 • 15

Behind the Scenes Creating an exhibit that brings IIHR’s history to life Early in 2020, IIHR and the Old Capitol Museum partnered to create a centennial exhibition that celebrates the institute’s important contributions to fluids-related research. Titled “A River Flowed Through It: Iowa’s Legacy in Fluid Mechanics,” the exhibit brings IIHR’s extraordinary history to life through artifacts, storytelling, and historical photos.

Unfortunately, about a month after the exhibit opened in February 2020, the coronavirus pandemic forced it to close again. Thankfully, the museum has agreed to keep the exhibit up through 2021 to allow more visitors to see it, either in person or online.

IIHR’s Carmen Langel, a former museum curator, provided the vision and led the exhibit creation process. But many others contributed to the final product. This photo essay offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process and gives us a chance to thank everyone who contributed their talents and energy to this dynamic exhibit. Plus, it gives you a peek at the exhibit itself!

And don’t forget — the IIHR Centennial celebration will be rescheduled for fall 2022.

Details to come. See you there!

Editor’s Note: We’d also like to thank our talented photographer Aneta Goska, who spent many hours scanning and organizing archival images for this exhibit. She doesn’t appear in any of the photos because she was taking them! Thanks to our amazing graphic designer, Robyn Hepker of Benson & Hepker Design, who contributed her professional design sense and artistic flair to the exhibit.

Also, special thanks to Liz Crooks and her team at Pentacrest Museums, without whose support and tireless efforts the exhibit would not have been possible.

See a virtual exhibit at

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ABOVE: Curator Carmen Langel provided the vision and content for the exhibit, as well as countless hours of hands-on labor.

RIGHT: Two of “the Shop Guys,” Rick Saeugling (left) and Austin Brockman, put in many hours installing artifacts for the exhibit, including this vintage ship model.

pentacrestmuseums.uiowa.edu/river-flowed-through-it

ABOVE LEFT: Shop Manager Brandon Barquist’s endless humor, creativity, and organizational skills kept everyone happy and on task.

TOP: Tony Loeser and Jackie Stolze installed many photos, artifacts, and text panels – most of them straight and right side up.

ABOVE: Shop staff Rick Saeugling (left) and Robby Nace installed artifacts, including several of IIHR’s antique current meters.

2020–21 • 17

TOP: Engineer Tony Loeser took a moment to channel his inner Jack Kennedy.

MIDDLE: IIHR Director Gabriele Villarini with an exhibit on IIHR’s directors.

BOTTOM: Graphic designer Robyn Hepker gave the exhibit its professional, polished look.

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Kids of all ages love to press the button that sends water flowing through the exhibit’s mini-models.

IIHR’s Kate Giannini brought her boys, Nolan and Easton, to the exhibit opening. Here Nolan checks out an interactive mini dropshaft model designed and built in the IIHR shop.

TOP: IIHR’s founding archivist Connie Mutel (left) congratulates curator Carmen Langel on the exhibit. Connie’s original research and historical writings are the backbone of the exhibit.

MIDDLE: Student assistants Margot Dick (left) and Lyndi Kiple conducted research, wrote descriptions, and helped install the exhibit, with guidance from Carmen Langel (right).

BOTTOM: Carmen Langel (left) with Director of Pentacrest Museums Liz Crooks. Crooks and her team provided many resources and built the temporary interior structures for the exhibit.

Dr. Floyd Nagler photo from the exhibit.

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Illuminating the Subsurface There’s a lot more going on underground than most of us imagine.

BY JAC Q U ELI NE HA RTL I N G STO LZ E

IIHR researcher Jessica Meyer is working to develop new insights on how groundwater moves and innovative ways to characterize its flow. Meyer, an assistant professor in the University of Iowa Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, says that understanding the flow of groundwater can be difficult.

“It’s challenging because you can’t observe any of it directly,” she says. But for the more than 110 million people in the United States who get their drinking water from groundwater sources, it’s important.

Although groundwater is an excellent source of clean, reliable drinking water, contamination is a problem. “We’ve certainly degraded that resource in many areas,” Meyer says. “In some systems, we’re very effective at remediating it. And in some systems, remediation is much more challenging.”

Meyer says her role is to take the first step, which is to understand how the water is moving and where the contaminants are.

“You can’t clean up something if you don’t know where it is to begin with.” Geology is

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often very complex and essentially serves as the “plumbing” for groundwater. So, you are trying to understand how the water moves through the complex plumbing of the geology.

To achieve these goals, Meyer is developing new tools and techniques that illuminate the subsurface to better understand groundwater flow and contaminant transport.

The process often begins with continuous core — long tubular samples of subsurface rock collected by a drill rig. “We can use that core to understand the geology and the water and contaminants moving through it,” Meyer says.

Meyer also takes measurements from the borehole, installing instruments called multilevels to turn one hole into many different wells. “Where typical studies have three data points, multi-levels provide 7 to 40. It provides new insights in terms of the kind of geological features that are influencing flow.”

Many times, the contamination occurred decades ago. “It’s not uncommon to be working at sites where the contamination went into the ground sometime prior to 1970, and you’re still working on it in 2020.

“Where typical studies have three data points, multi-levels provide 7 to 40. It provides new insights in terms of the kind of geological features that are influencing flow.”

— JESSICA MEYER, IIHR RESEARCHER

“What is unfortunate is that we keep repeating that situation where we don’t necessarily think about these new compounds that we’re creating in terms of their environmental impacts long-term,” Meyer says.

She partners with scientists who design strategies to remediate groundwater contamination. One technique is to pump the water out and treat it at the surface. But Meyer says it’s often preferred to treat the water where it is – it can be more cost effective and doesn’t move the problem around. “But it all just gets harder to do when you have to do it in the subsurface,” she explains. “You don’t have as much control.” So, Meyer says, anytime we can take advantage of natural processes that help to clean up the contamination, it’s a plus.

For example, microbes present in aquifers can be efficient at remediating some contaminants so long as they have everything they need to “make a living.” One clean-up technique includes adding things to the subsurface to help along the natural degradation processes. “It gets pretty crazy,” Meyer says. “You might literally add bacteria

that degrade the contaminants to the subsurface, or you might add the things that the bacteria need.” This could include oxygen or carbon, sometimes in the form of vegetable oil or molasses.

In other cases, Meyer says, remediation means building a permeable reactive barrier.

“It’s almost like building a filter in the subsurface that we route the groundwater through. There’s a treatment process that happens within that filter as the water flows through it.”

Meyer would like all Iowans to be more aware of their groundwater and its importance.

It’s something many of us don’t think about very often, even if we draw drinking water directly from the aquifer.

“The expectation is very much just, there’ll be water,” Meyer says. “If we’re talking about trying to manage a resource in a sustainable fashion, we need to know more about it. We need to understand it. Because you can’t manage what you don’t understand.”

IIHR’s Jessica Meyer loves fieldwork, especially with students!

LEFT: Meyer (left) demonstrates how to install a borehole liner.

MIDDLE: Showing students how to install a transducer string in a borehole (or, as Meyer likes to say, hydrogeologists doing what they do best, staring down a hole in the ground).

RIGHT: The distribution of aquifers and aquitards (i.e., hydrostratigraphy) strongly influences the path groundwater takes through the subsurface. Meyer’s research develops new ways to provide insight into the hydrostratigraphy to improve our understanding of groundwater flow and contaminant transport.

Infographic adapted from Toth (1995) 2020–21 • 21

Working Hard and Having Fun

BY JAC Q U ELI NE HA RTL I N G STO LZ E

Laura Myers has been making life at IIHR more fun for almost 20 years.

Laura Myers truly hates being late. But in 2002, she was five minutes late for work her first day at IIHR. “It was so not me!” she says. She more than corrected that first impression, though, and is now one of the people everyone depends on — and not only for a smile or a laugh. Myers’ institutional knowledge and experience are important to the institute and its mission.

Myers grew up near the Coralville Reservoir, the youngest of five sisters. “We were always thick as thieves,” she says.

They still are. “I know that I have at least four best friends forever.”

Myers’ father dreamed of living in northern Minnesota, so he put his daughters to work helping to cut down the existing trees and Laura Myers (front) and sister Donelle navigate their canoe replacing them with through a small rapids in the pine trees.

Boundary Waters. “We did get

“This is what quite wet and even capsized once,” we did our whole Myers says. “Wet sleeping bags are childhood,” Myers no fun.” says. “I became a very hard worker.”

When the band of girls had free time, they escaped into the woods to create their own adventures,

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completely unsupervised. “Our idea of playing was pretending it was ‘Red Dawn’ and building some sort of secret fort in the trees, or maybe searching an old, abandoned home and making it into an Indiana Jones archaeology dig.”

Myers and her sisters drove long before they turned 16, (mostly) on their parents’ property. “I can remember steering the ‘old green jeep’ while Kristine managed the pedals, because neither of us was tall enough to do both,” Myers says. “Crazy times!”

She adds, “We were not super average girls.

I did have a few dolls, but we tended to put them up in the trees as snipers.”

When Myers started work at IIHR, V.C. Patel was the director, and Marlene Janssen supervised the office staff. When Janssen retired about a year later, Myers took on some of her duties providing support to Patel.

Since then, she’s worked with two other IIHR directors, Larry Weber and Gabriele Villarini.

“My favorite thing about IIHR is meeting and becoming friends with so many wonderful, brilliant people from around the world,” Myers says. It’s amazing that landlocked Iowa is home to an organization that’s so diverse, she says.

“I’m so happy to be part of that.”

And although she jokes that she fell in with a bad crowd when she first came to IIHR (“Anyone who knows Mike Kundert will know what I mean”), Myers made many close friendships, including Paul Below, Sofia Castillo, Jen Nichols (now Mullens), and many more.

When asked what her perfect day would look like, Myers says it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re with the right people. “In the end, we choose our lives, and if we don’t choose to be with the people who make life fun, who make life happy, well, it seems like a waste to me.

“Life is short,” she says. “The more joy we can get, give, and share – that’s all that matters.”

IIHR Profiles Propelled into the Future

BY MARG OT D I C K

Ferries move steadily on the rivers of downtown Dhaka in Bangladesh, transporting passengers across the waterways. That is the view that inspired a young Mehedi Bappy to pursue a career in waterways and vessel engineering. Bappy often traveled by ferry around his hometown, paying close attention to their precise movements. He often wondered about how such small propellers could maneuver enormous ships through the rivers.

Bappy began his undergraduate studies in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. There, he focused on water and ship design and construction. In his studies, he looked for solutions to optimize the performance of ships to improve their designs.

After he finished his bachelor’s studies in Bangladesh, Bappy realized he could do more with an advanced degree. IIHR is a world leader in ship hydrodynamics, the perfect place for someone looking to optimize ship designs. Since 2017, Bappy has been working on cavitation modeling and prediction of cavitation inception alongside his advisor, IIHR Research Engineer Pablo Carrica.

Cavitation modeling predicts the growth and evolution of microscopic bubbles through a body of water. The bubbles come from several sources, though one Bappy is most interested in is boat propellers.

Moving propellers drop the pressure of the surrounding water, increasing the size of the bubbles they create. When the pressure is released, the bubbles pop, freeing energy that can create noise and damage the propeller or any other surrounding body.

Bappy’s research attempts to determine the point of cavitation inception, or where cavitation events begin. From there, they investigate ways to reduce the harmful effects of cavitation on the adjacent surfaces and ecosystem.

One of Bappy’s favorite parts of his work at IIHR is the collaboration. He enjoys working with people not only from around the Midwest, but from other universities and countries.

Outside of work, Bappy is a homebody, preferring a night in reading a book and relaxing. One of his favorite activities is taking a long drive or watching a movie with his wife.

Bappy credits his success to the support he gets from his wife and parents.

“They gave me the resources and support to be here, where I am now. Especially my wife stays by my side through thick and thin. She reduces the pressure around me and helps me to grow as a person — it is like cavitation in a sense,” he says.

As he looks to the future and hopes he can join a naval program or even branch out into automotive or aerospace engineering, Bappy is focused on putting his training to good use, wherever that may take him.

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Staying Afloat and Learning to Think

BY JAC Q U ELI NE HA RTL I N G STO LZ E

IIHR alumnus Fred Locher has some good stories to tell about his student days at the institute.

Former IIHR Director Hunter Rouse’s Intermediate Fluid Mechanics course kept even the best graduate students in the 1950s and ’60s in awe, often tinged with fear. But it couldn’t be avoided — if you studied at the institute, you took the course. Rouse used the course to determine if the student was to be accepted for study for advanced degrees. As the legendary Rouse stood at the chalkboard, sketching fluid mechanics problems in his beautiful hand (“It was like watching the textbook being illustrated right in front of your nose,” remembers IIHR alumnus Fred Locher), most students were struggling just to stay afloat.

What they feared was that Rouse would direct a question to them, a question that could seem deceptively simple. And thus deceived, they might answer incorrectly. Rouse would then lead them down this disastrous track until they reached a dead end from which they could not extricate themselves.

It could happen to anyone, anytime.

One day, the class was talking about jets.

Rouse asked a seemingly simple question.

You’ve got a drinking fountain out in the hall, Rouse said. When you first open the drinking fountain, the jet squirts up higher than it does when it finally settles down to steady state.

Why is that? The student unlucky enough to be asked started confidently but wandered further and further into left field. Rouse let him continue until at last the student realized — he didn’t know why the fountain behaved that way.

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After watching the student flail about, Rouse asked more questions to encourage him to find a way out of his predicament. It was a harrowing experience, but an educational one, Locher says.

“You’d put two and two together and come out of it,” he explains. “That was part of your education.”

Locher, who earned MS and PhD degrees at IIHR in the 1960s, says he sat through Rouse’s course two more times after he passed it the first time. “The first time through, you were so busy trying to not fall in the hole,” Locher says. “There were guys who were just absolutely petrified in that course because it was an experience that you hadn’t had before.

Also, your future at Iowa depended on passing Rouse’s evaluation.”

Rouse, he says, insisted that students approach problems by asking themselves, what should that fluid be doing? “He wasn’t interested in teaching you mathematics. He was interested in the physical aspects of what you were seeing and what you would learn from what you saw,” Locher says.

“He was trying to get people to think!

In my experience, that is the most difficult thing to do.”

IIHR Profiles

LEFT: Fred Locher works with the IBM 1800 in the 1960s — note the printer and card reader. “I am entering information into the computer via the data entry switches on the front panel,” Locher says.

RIGHT: Fred Locher and wife Donna love travel and photography, especially when they can combine the two.

Here, they are on a photo safari in Africa.

P U N C H CAR DS AND R U S S I A N S P I ES

Locher came to Iowa in 1962 from Michigan Tech, where he had completed an undergraduate degree in civil engineering.

He had an interest in hydraulics, and on his father’s advice, he applied to the strong UI program in fluid mechanics.

His timing was excellent. The UI physics department had just ordered a computer but then had second thoughts. IIHR Director Jack Kennedy saw an opportunity and acquired the computer for the institute. He recognized that the lab was on the cusp of a new era of research; to move forward with experimental work, IIHR needed a computer that could collect experimental data from projects in the institute’s laboratories.

Locher worked with IIHR faculty member Jack Glover (“the electronics instrumentation guru in the lab”) to set up the IBM 1800 computer. It was a milestone, one of IIHR’s first steps toward its current global leadership in computational modeling and simulation.

Locher says IIHR was probably the first nongovernmental lab that had a computer that could collect experimental data, and certainly the first to do so in hydraulics.

“The Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg didn’t have this. The Bureau of Reclamation didn’t

have it. Alden Labs didn’t have it, and neither did MIT,” Locher says.

IBM wanted a substantial sum of money to load out the operating system on the new computer, so Glover and Locher decided to do it themselves. The computers of that era used hundreds or even thousands of punch cards to input programs and data. “The operating system for that little machine was in three boxes of IBM punch cards,” Locher says. “A box of IBM cards contained about 2,000 cards. Do not drop!

“Of course, IBM said, ‘Well, you’ll never be able to load that out.’” Undeterred, Glover and Locher loaded out the punch cards themselves.

It didn’t run.

After some investigation, Glover soon found that the brand-new card reader was shuffling the deck of some 6,000 punch cards as it loaded them. “That meant that the instructions on the cards were getting out of order.”

Glover and Locher did “a bit of finagling” to reassemble the deck in the proper order.

“We had our fair share of shuffling to do, but it finally worked!” he says. “We just straightened it out, loaded it up, and that’s how the system initially got started.”

The IBM 1800 put IIHR firmly in the forefront of the computer revolution that was 2020–21 • 25

A LIVE WIRE

Women were few and far between in engineering prior to the 1960s, but Locher remembers IIHR alumna Margaret Petersen with affection and admiration. Petersen and her friend and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) colleague Irene Miller were among the first women to take Åke Alin’s (chief USACE engineer at Fort Randall Dam) famous course on dams. “Old engineer that he was, he had a rather salty vocabulary,” Locher says. Alin was trying hard to watch his language on account of having two ladies in the room. After a couple of class sessions, Petersen finally went up to Alin and told him, “I’ve heard it all before, so don’t worry about it. Just be yourself.”

After graduating from the University of Iowa, Petersen went on to climb through the ranks at USACE, a pioneering woman in what was a man’s field. “She was really a great person, a real live wire,” Locher adds. “Anybody who survived Åke’s course was all right.”

In the late 1960s, IIHR researchers Jack Glover (left) and Subhash Jain used the new IBM computer to record and process large amounts of data generated by a model study of sedimentary dunes and ripples in the Missouri riverbed. It was one of IIHR’s first computer-dependent research efforts.

overtaking science at the time. People came from government agencies and even the Soviet Union to see the new system at work. “Jack Kennedy called him our friendly Russian spy,” Locher says. “It was all on a friendly basis, but we all knew that he was really trying to find out what was going on.”

AN E LEVATI NG EDUCATI ON

Successful students at IIHR have always had to be determined and tenacious. Case in point — the elevator in Stanley Hydraulics Lab. The elevator didn’t stop automatically, Locher says. “You kept your finger on the button. As the elevator rose up toward the floor, when it got just about right you took your finger off.” If you were good, the elevator ended up even with the floor. You opened the doors and got out.

If not, prepare to jump or try again.

“It was one of those engineering challenges,” Locher remembers. “As we said, if you passed this course, you can get out of the laboratory!”

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BE CHT E L AN D BE YON D

Locher says the education he got at IIHR and the University of Iowa served him well throughout his career. He went on to a long and successful tenure at Bechtel, a global engineering construction firm. More than once, Locher’s ability to think saved the day.

His first boss at Bechtel was Jack Kennedy’s friend Rex Elder. “There was a fair bit of Hunter Rouse in him, though I don’t think he would admit it,” Locher says.

While he was a student at Iowa, Locher met and married his wife Donna, an Iowa native. Together they moved to California’s Bay Area, where they have lived ever since. Now retired, they enjoy sailing, photography, and travel. The pair has seen and photographed everything from African wildlife in Kenya to following in the footsteps of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle on a mystery tour in England and Wales.

“Lessons in thinking are everywhere,” Locher says. Still on the bucket list are the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal. They look forward to more trips after the pandemic — including, perhaps, a trip to Iowa in 2022 for IIHR’s rescheduled centennial?

Mission

Vision

Value

IIHR’s mission is to advance science and technology, providing innovative solutions for fluids-related problems while building upon its long tradition of excellence in laboratory, field, and simulation-based research and education.

IIHR’s vision is to be the recognized leader in fluidsrelated science, engineering, research, and discovery.

IIHR comprises a diverse community that values excellence through integrity, transparency, mutual support, and respect. Our culture is rooted in scientific curiosity, mentorship, service, and stewardship.

Advisory Board Members PAUL BATES (2020–24) School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol JEFFREY CZAJKOWSKI (2019–23) Center for Insurance Policy & Research, National Association of Insurance Commissioners SARAH JOHNSON (2019–23) Office of Development and Alumni Relations, Grinnell College THAD MICHAEL (2016–21) U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division PEDRO RESTREPO (2016–21) National Weather Service/NOAA (retired) HUGH J. ROBERTS (2020–24) The Water Institute of the Gulf LAWRENCE TARASEK (2018–22) Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division MARTIN TEAL (2018–22) WEST Consultants Inc. KATHLEEN WHITE (2020–24) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers GABRIEL VECCHI (2020–24) Department of Geosciences, Princeton University PETER VIKESLAND (2018–22) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech University Ex Officio Members: HARRIET NEMBHARD Dean, College of Engineering, University of Iowa GABRIELE VILLARINI Director, IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa CARMEN LANGEL Director of Development and Communications, IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa 2020–21 • 27

Fiscal Year in Review IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering became the research home of the Iowa Superfund Research Program (ISRP) in 2019. Founded in 2006 and funded by the National Institutes of Health, the ISRP is a global leader in the study of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have been banned in the United States since the 1970s. Under the leadership of IIHR faculty affiliate Keri Hornbuckle, the ISRP was awarded a highly competitive five-year, $11.4 million renewal in 2020.

IIHR is funded by a very diverse portfolio of grants and contracts. Large, multi-year funded research projects like the ISRP help provide the institute with a degree of financial stability. It’s also an example of IIHR’s high level of scholarly productivity and associated funding, demonstrating the institute’s ability to nurture and support a variety of fluids-related research activities, funded by a wide range of sponsors.

External Funding by Sponsor FY19 DOE/NASA — $207,366 Iowa State, other Govt — $1,824,905 NIH — $1,688,672 Iowa Flood Center — $1,171,222 Corporations — $666,438 DOT, USDA, other Fed — $3,053,008 NSF — $1,700,584 Army, Navy, Air Force — $4,267,430 Non-Profit — $340,995

Fiscal Year 2009–2019 Funding

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2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

$19,411,301

$19,216,359

2012

$19,541,846

2011

$20,719,407

2010

$20,414,489

2009

$18,960,972

$0

$18,499,273

$5,000,000

$17,788,608

$10,000,000

$12,067,839

$15,000,000

$16,029,876

$20,000,000

$20,826,264

$25,000,000

2018

2019

Parting Shot

2020–21 • 29

IIHR Currents is published annually by IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering The University of Iowa 100 C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1585 319-335-5237 www.iihr.uiowa.edu

The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination in employment, educational programs, and activities on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, pregnancy, disability, genetic information, status as a U.S. veteran, service in the U.S. military, sexual orientation, gender identity, associational preferences, or any other classification that deprives the person of consideration as an individual. The university also affirms its commitment to providing equal opportunities and equal access to university facilities. For additional information on nondiscrimination policies, contact the Director, Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, the University of Iowa, 202 Jessup Hall, Iowa City, ia 52242-1316, 319-335-0705 (voice), 319-335-0697 (tdd), diversity@uiowa.edu.

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