No Two Days the Same

bY MaRGOT DICK

“Everyone says electronics and water don’t mix, but everything I do is electronics essentially in water.”

Jim Niemeier is calm as he discusses high voltage equipment submerged in, or dangling just above, a river — an excellent conductor of electricity. After 15 years and three degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Iowa (UI), Niemeier knows how to combine the two forces. He started out working with UI engineering faculty members Witold Krajewski and Anton Krueger as a master’s student at IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering in 2006 on the stream sensor project. Since then, he has also received a PhD and holds a full-time position at the Iowa Flood Center and IIHR.

Today, Niemeier takes care of the IIHR electronics shop and all the strange and fascinating requests that come along with it.

“I never quite know who’s going to knock on my door and have some sort of electrical question,” Niemeier says.

IIHR faculty researchers need his expertise for their work in a wide variety of areas. For instance, Niemeier set up cameras to observe streams for Marian Muste, worked with Corey Markfort to monitor bat activity around wind turbines, and is helping Craig Just with instrumentation for wastewater treatment plants. Niemeier says that no day is like the one before, with a constant stream of new and interesting challenges.

Niemeier says he has traveled to all corners of the state for instrument installation in his work for the IFC. Given the flood center’s goal of installing at least one rain gauge in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, he is sure to see even more.

“One point even within the county isn’t much, but it’s a lot more than what there is currently,” Niemeier says.

The new and improved rain gauges not only measure the volume of each rainfall event, but also track how the water moves through the area. As raindrops fall, they hit a small area at the top of the tripod called an impact disdrometer that acts as a drum, measuring the number of raindrops in the area over a given time period. Below the ground around the tripod, soil moisture and soil temperature readers collect data and report back to the same program.

The tripod can track the rain’s progress as the first few drops strike the surface and then percolate into the soil.

Eventually, those raindrops make their way to local streams where IFC’s stream-stage sensors pick up the change in water depth all the way to the Mississippi River. Niemeier says with these data, you can track the entire life cycle of a raindrop as it travels through the state.

A passion for electrical engineering isn’t all Niemeier found at Iowa. The university is also where he met his wife, a recently retired naval officer. She then decided to pursue her own PhD at Iowa and will be following the same path Niemeier did, working with Anton Krueger as she studies for her doctorate in electrical engineering.

Since his wife returned to Iowa after her deployment, Niemeier says he is establishing a new routine at home. His wife is settling into school, and Niemeier says there are some hobbies he would like to resume, such as woodworking, hunting, and fishing. For his next project, he plans to finish a dining room table he’s been working on. It is made of a single, solid slab of oak.

Niemeier says the one thing he enjoys most about his job is the company, both the shop staff and other co-workers across the river. He still works alongside the researchers who advised him when he first arrived at Iowa over a decade ago.