2021 Honorary Degree Recipient

Dr. Paul Hsieh

Dr. Paul Hsieh is currently an independent groundwater hydrologist, having retired in 2018 from the U.S. Geological Survey after 41 years of service as a research hydrologist. He received his B.S.E. from Princeton University in Civil Engineering, and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in Hydrology and Water Resources. His research at the USGS spanned diverse topics that included groundwater flow and solute transport in fractured rocks, the development, and application of computer simulation models, the interaction between groundwater and earthquakes, and volcano hydrology. During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, he served on the federal government's science team on oil spill response. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union, and received the Service to America medal in 2011 from the Partnership for Public Service. Currently, he volunteers for The Groundwater Project, a non-profit organization with the mission of providing free educational materials to all who want to learn about groundwater.

"The Human Side of Groundwater Science"

In looking back at my career as a groundwater hydrologist, I have come to realize the importance of social interaction in transforming scientific knowledge into benefits for society. In this informal presentation, I will illustrate this idea by three examples from my personal experience: as a graduate student at the University of Arizona, developing a multi-state groundwater model, and working on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In the world of earth science, knowledge and information always carry uncertainty. The scientist must be willing to engage with non-scientists, including the public at large so that scientific knowledge is used in a way to make informed decisions.

Watch Dr. Hseih's Lecture

(from left) Paul Hsieh and Shlomo Neuman

(front row, left to right) Christine Peterson, Paul Hsieh, Shlomo Neuman (middle row) Steve Ingebritsen, Tim Corley, Larry Winter, Amado Guzman, Peter Quinlan, Jennifer McIntosh (back row) Hoshin Gupta, Thomas Meixner, Tom Phelan