Biography
Praveen Kumar holds a B.Tech. (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India 1987), M.S. (Iowa State University 1989), and Ph.D. (University of Minnesota 1993), all in civil engineering. He has been on the faculty of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois since 1995. Prior to joining University of Illinois, he was a research scientist (January 1993 to July 1995) at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and Hydrologic Sciences Branch, NASA- Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
Dr. Kumar has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in hydrosystems engineering, engineering modeling under uncertainty, surface water hydrology, hydroclimatology, stochastic hydrology, non-linear methods in hydrology, and hydroinformatics.
In 1993 Dr. Kumar received the Universities Space Research Association Award for Promise and Potential of a Young Scientist. In 1996 he received the NASA New Young Investigator Award. He was selected as the NCSA/UIUC Faculty Fellow for 2001-2002. In 2005 he received the Xerox Award for Faculty Research. He has also been recognized for teaching excellence by having been listed several times in the UIUC List of Teachers Rated as Excellent by their Students.
Dr. Kumar has served as the Editor-in-Chief for Water Resources Research, (2009-2013) the major scientific journal in the field, published by American Geophysical Union (AGU). Prior to that he was the Editor for Geophysical Research Letters (2007-2009) also published by AGU. In the past he has served as the Associate Editor (1998-2001) for Water Resources Research and for ASCE Journal of Hydrologic Engineering (2003-2004). He is a member of Ecohydrology Committee, and Remote Sensing Committee of the Hydrology Section of the American Geophysical Union and served as the Chair of Precipitation Committee during 1999-2001. He served for five years as a member of the Board of Directors for CUHASI,Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science which has 120 member universities.
Research Interests
Dr. Kumar’s research deals with Hydrocomplexity, the quantitative understanding and prediction of emergent patterns of form and function that arise from complex non-linear multi-scale interactions between soil, water, climate, vegetation and human systems; and how this understanding can be used for innovative solutions to water and sustainability challenges. His research has been funded by federal agencies such as NSF, NASA, and NOAA. He presently serves as the Director of the Critical Zone Observatory for Intensively Managed Landscapes. He is also the lead on NSF supported EarthCube project on Geo-Semantics, and a co-lead on NSF supported SEAD and Brown Dog projects for the development of cyber-infrastructure for structured and unstructured long-tail data and models.
- Lead on NSF supported EarthCube project on Geo-Semantics, and a co-lead on NSF supported SEAD and Brown Dog projects for the development of cyber-infrastructure for structured and unstructured long-tail data and models.
- Currently Director of the Critical Zone Observatory for Intensively Managed Landscapes.
- Innovative solutions to water and sustainability challenges
- Hydrocomplexity, the quantitative understanding and prediction of emergent patterns of form and function that arise from complex non-linear multi-scale interactions between soil, water, climate, vegetation and human systems
Education
- University of Minnesota Ph.D. Civil Engineering 1993
- Iowa State University M.S. Civil Engineering 1989
- Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India B. Tech. Civil Engineering 1987
Courses Taught
- Affiliate Faculty, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Univ. of Illinois, 2015-Present
- Colonel Harry F. and Frankie M. Lovell Endowed Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, 2011-present
- Affiliate Res. Scientist, Institute for Advanced Computation & Tech., Univ. of Illinois, 2008-2014
- Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, 2006-Present
- Associate Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, 2001-2006
- Affiliate Faculty, Computational Science & Engineering Program, Univ. of Illinois, 1995-Present
- Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, 1995-2001
Additional Campus Affiliations
Executive Director, Prairie Research Institute
Colonel Harry F. & Frankie M. Lovell Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Professor, Center for Digital Agriculture, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Academic Service
SERVICE ON UNIVERSITY COMMITTEES
- 2014-present: Campus Task Force on Ag Big Data
- 2013-present: Campus NGRREC (National Great Rivers Research and Education Center) Working Group
- 2013-present: Steering Committee for iSEE (Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment), UIUC
- 2013: Chair, COE Awards Committee
- 2013:Member, Ad hoc tenure review committee, College of Engineering, UIUC
- 2012-present: Campus Committee on Named Faculty Appointments
- 2012 – present: Member, Energy-Water-Environment Sustainability Program, Department of Civil & Env. Eng., UIUC
- 2012-2013: Search Committee Member for joint faculty search between the departments of Integrative Biology and Plant Biology, UIUC
- 2012-2013: Student Sustainability Committee, Univ. of Illinois
- 2012-2013: Elected Member, UIUC Senate
SERVICE ON DEPARTMENT COMMITTEES
- 2004-2006: Undergraduate Affairs and Outcomes Assessment (Departmental Committee)
- 2001-2003: Coordinator, Graduate Admissions, Information technology Program
- 2001-2003, 2005-2007: Graduate Affairs Committee
- 2001-2002: Search Committee Member for joint faculty search between the departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Atmospheric Science, and Environmental Council
- 2001-2002: Information Technology M.S. Program Committee (Departmental Committee)
OTHER OUTSIDE SERVICE
- Journal Referee; Water Resources Research; Journal of Applied Meteorology; Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society; Biometrika; Journal of Geophysical Research; Journal of Stochastic Hydrology and Hydraulics; ASCE Journal of Hydrologic Engineering; Journal of Hydrometeorology; Journal of Climate; Advances in Water Resources; Hydrologic Processes
- Grant Proposal Panel; National Science Foundation; National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Grant Proposal Reviewer National Aeronautics and Space Administration; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; National Science Foundation
- Board member, Champaign Urbana Montessori Elementary School, 2000 2002, Vice President, 2001 2002.
Honors & Awards
HONORS
- Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising (2013)
- Featured Article, Water Resources Research (2011)
- Associate (2011-2012)
- Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2005)
- Faculty Fellow at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (2001, 2002, 2006-2007)
- Listed in (Incomplete) List of Instructors Ranked as Excellent at the Univ. of Illinois (Spring 2001Spring 2002Fall 2005Spring 2006Spring 2007Spring 2008Spring 2009Spring 2010Spring 2011)
- NASA New Young Investigator Award (1996)
- Award for Promise and Potential of a Young Scientist, (1993)
- Visiting Fellow (1993)
TEACHING HONORS
- Ciaran Harman (co-advised student), Horton Research Grant (2010)
- Francina Dominguez: Outstanding Student Paper Award, Amer. Geo. Union Fall Meeting (2005)
- Patricia Saco: 2003 Straub Award for Best Dissertation (University of Minnesota) (2005)
- Geremew G. Amenu: Winner of Student Poster Competitions at Illinois Water (Illinois Water is a biennial conference) (2004)
- Patricia Saco: Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) Best Dissertation Award (2004)
- Ji Chen: Outstanding Student Paper Award, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (1999)
Recent Publications
Kumar, P., & Rodriguez, L. H. (2023). Evolution of Causal Structure of Interactions in Turbulence at the Biosphere-Atmosphere interface. In EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023 [EGU23-16510] Copernicus Meetings. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16510
Shen, C., Appling, A. P., Gentine, P., Bandai, T., Gupta, H., Tartakovsky, A., Baity-Jesi, M., Fenicia, F., Kifer, D., Li, L., Liu, X., Ren, W., Zheng, Y., Harman, C. J., Clark, M., Farthing, M., Feng, D., Kumar, P., Aboelyazeed, D., ... Lawson, K. (2023). Differentiable modeling to unify machine learning and physical models and advance Geosciences. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2301.04027
Cain, M. R., Woo, D. K., Kumar, P., Keefer, L., & Ward, A. S. (2022). Antecedent Conditions Control Thresholds of Tile-Runoff Generation and Nitrogen Export in Intensively Managed Landscapes. Water Resources Research, 58(2), [e2021WR030507]. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR030507
Ganguly, A. R., van Breukelen, B. M., Evers, M., Hendricks Franssen, H. J., Illangasekare, T., Kumar, P., Steefel, C., & Taylor, R. G. (2022). Editorial: Frontiers in water: Rising stars 2021. Frontiers in Water, 4, [1033848]. https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1033848
Martin, M. R., Kumar, P., Sonnentag, O., & Marsh, P. (2022). Thermodynamic basis for the demarcation of Arctic and alpine treelines. Scientific reports, 12(1), [12565]. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16462-2
