People

Helen Dahlke, Ph.D.

Is an Associate Professor in Physical Hydrology at the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis. Her main research interests include surface water – groundwater interaction, water resources management, vadose zone transport processes, stochastic and isotope hydrology and applications of DNA nanotechnology in hydrology. About me.

	Seanna McLaughlin Is pursuing a Masters of Science degree in the Land, Air and Water Resources Department, Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group at UC Davis. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science & Soil Science from University of Connecticut in August 2015. Her Masters research will focus on investigating changes in the mass balance of major nutrients (C, N, P) and base cations/anions within the South Fork watershed of Caspar Creek in response to stand density reductions. In her free time Seanna likes to attend to gardens and chickens and spend time in nature.
	Cristina Prieto García Is a junior specialist in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources at UC Davis. She is supervising soil and water sample analyses in the Dahlke Lab. She received her MSc degree in hydrogeology and soil science from Universidad Complutense of Madrid in October 2011, where she worked on identifying early signs of climate change effects in annual and seasonal rainfall patterns on the Iberian Peninsula. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, outdoor adventures of all kinds and dinner potlucks with friends.
	Nisha Marwaha Nisha holds a BS in Biological Systems Engineering from the University of California, Davis. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of rural poverty, land use, and water. She is performing a likelihood analysis of water scarcity remediation for disadvantaged communities in the Tulare Lake Basin. This analysis will include creating a geospatial database of physical, economic, and social data that will guide further research of new technological or management approaches to water resources in the basin. In her free time she works on engineering design projects with developing communities, backpacks to explore the world, and chases sunsets by bike.
	Nicholas Murphy Nick Murphy is pursuing his PhD in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Group. He graduated from Boston University in 2015, where he studied Earth Sciences. His previous research used Sr isotopes to distinguish sources of soil nutrient contributions in Puerto Rico, and Ca isotopes to study anthropogenic influences in New Hampshire forests. His current research focuses on contaminant transport in the vadose zone in relation to agricultural groundwater banking. Outside of school, he enjoys ultimate frisbee, climbing, soccer and music.
	Zhu Liu Is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources at UC Davis. Zhu received his PhD degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in August 2018, where he worked on multi-scales flood modeling and epistemic uncertainty quantification. His current research topic is about modeling different climate and land use scenarios within the upland watersheds of the Tulare Lake Basin (TLB), a snow influenced watershed in the southern part of California Central Valley using the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to determine long-term changes in the water balance in the TLB. In his spare time, he likes swimming, hiking and watching movies.
	Yonatan Ganot Is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis. He received his PhD degree from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he studied the hydrological and geochemical processes during managed aquifer recharge with desalinated seawater. His current research project focus on soil aeration during agricultural groundwater banking. Google scholar profile

Former Lab Members

	Chaozi Wang Was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis. She received her PhD degree from Cornell University at Soil and Water Lab in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, where she modeled the transport of Escherichia coli at soil column and watershed scales. At UC Davis she was working on fabricating and applying DNA tracers, a novel type of hydrologic tracer made of polylactic acid microspheres. Each microsphere encapsulates a small strand of synthetic DNA as a label. Chaozi is now an assistant professor at China Agricultural University.
	Coy McNew Was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources at UC Davis. Coy received his PhD in Environmental Engineering from Vanderbilt University in December 2015, where he studied the environmental transport of engineered nanomaterials, including state of the art analytical laboratory techniques and a first of its kind machine learning approach to describe particle transport behavior. Coy is now a staff engineer at ERM Consulting.
	Andrew Brown Was a Masters of Science student in the Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group at UC Davis. He is currently working for the USDA NRCS as soil surveyor.
	Bettina Matti Was a visiting Fulbright student at the Department for Land, Air and Water Resources. She holds a BSc in Geography with minor in biology from the University of Bern in Switzerland and a MSc in Hydrology from Stockholm University in Sweden. Bettina is interested in surface water, hydrological extremes, hydroclimatology, glacier hydrology and water resources in agriculture. In her free time, she enjoys swimming, hiking, mountaineering and playing the oboe.