People

Dr. Emily Berglund is a Professor and Associate Head for Faculty Development in the NCSU Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering. She graduated from NCSU, where she earned her Ph.D. in 2005, and she was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University for four years before returning to NCSU.  Berglund is an expert in the development of agent-based models of sociotechnical systems to simulate feedback mechanisms and adaptive behaviors among consumers, infrastructure, and environmental systems. Her research also explores optimization models and algorithms to manage the sustainability, security, and resilience of complex infrastructure systems. Dr. Berglund received NC State’s Outstanding Graduate Faculty Mentor Award in 2018, and she is an associate editor for the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. Along with co-authors, she was awarded 2019 Best Seminal Paper Award, Editor’s Choice Award in 2016, 2020, and 2022, and Best Research-Oriented Paper Awards in 2010 and 2011 for publications in the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. She received Outstanding Reviewer Awards for ASCE journals in 2010, 2011, and 2018.

 

Berglund has experience working on interdisciplinary projects to create models that integrate behavioral factors and infrastructure management. Dr. Berglund is a faculty fellow in the NCSU Center for Geospatial Analytics and is a core team member of the University of Texas Center for Infrastructure Modeling and Management.  She has worked with on-campus centers, including the NCSU Science of Security Lablet and the NCSU Laboratory for Analytic Sciences.  Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Security Agency (NSA), and state water and transportation research institutes. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in water resources engineering, hydrology, and systems analysis for civil engineering. Find Dr. Berglund’s CV here.

Current Graduate Students

Elias Zauscher graduated from NC State with his B.S. in Environmental Engineering and enrolled in the PhD program in 2023.  His research focuses on developing new methods to manage water distribution systems.  First, he has created a methodology to generate new water distribution system models using open access data.  New models will be explored to assess the performance of water distribution systems under changing demands associated with decentralized water supply systems, population growth, and depopulation. He was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2024 to conduct this research.

Kingston E. Armstrong completed his B.S. in Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley in the spring of 2021 and completed his MS at NC State in 2023. He began his PhD program in Fall 2023, with a focus on water quality modeling. He is currently completing a project funded by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to develop guidelines for modeling dissolved oxygen in surface water systems. His dissertation research is exploring the characterization and prediction of tipping points in the salinization of freshwater through the use of breakpoint analysis, early warning signals, and agent-based modeling.

Faisal Alghamdi graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering from King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 2015. In 2017, he joined King Abdulaziz University as a Teaching Assistant in the water resources engineering group. Faisal was awarded a fully funded scholarship to pursue graduate studies abroad. In 2019, he joined NCSU to pursue his master’s degree in water resources engineering and joined the STSA group to further his research interests and skills. Faisal completed his M.S. and began his Ph.D in 2021. He is passionate about the use of new infrastructure systems such as Advanced Metering Infrastructure to apply and develop advanced water distribution management strategies and to detect leaks in water distribution networks.

Ph.D. Students Graduated

· Brent Vizanko, Ph.D. 2025, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Simulating Changes in Water Demand due to COVID-19 for Water Distribution Systems

· Cade Karrenberg, Ph.D. 2024, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Digital Water: Addressing Cybersecurity and Equity in Changing Water Resources Engineering and Management

· Morgan DiCarlo, Ph.D. 2022, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Characterizing Behaviors in response to water-related hazards and effects on consequence mitigation

· Elizabeth Ramsey Bolton, Ph.D. 2022, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Resource Trading Markets: Applying Agent-Based Models to Test New Paradigms for Water Security

· Jorge Pesantez, Ph.D. 2021 (co-advised), North Carolina State University.  Dissertation: Using Smart Meter Data to Improve the Management and Operation of Water Distribution Systems

· Jacob Monroe, Ph.D. 2020, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Simulating Evolution of Low-voltage Electric Grids with Distributed Energy Technology Adoption: An Agent-based Modeling Approach

· Shams Al-Amin, Ph.D. 2018, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Agent-based Modeling to Explore Emergent Socio-Hydrologic Responses of a Shared Groundwater System Under Mandatory Restriction Policies

· Venu Kandiah, Ph.D. 2015, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Agent-based modeling for simulating the effects of demand reduction on urban water resources and infrastructure systems

· Michael (Ehsan) Shafiee, Ph.D. 2014, North Carolina State University. Dissertation: Modeling sociotechnical water distribution system contamination events to evaluate and identify mitigation strategies

· Marcio Giacomoni, Ph.D. 2012, Texas A&M University. Dissertation: A complex adaptive systems approach for simulating urban water resources sustainability

· Lufthansa Kanta, Ph.D. 2009 (co-advised), Texas A&M University. Dissertation: Hazards mitigation design for water distribution systems

M.S. Students Graduated

· Kingston Armstrong, M.S. 2023, North Carolina State University.  Thesis: Simulating the Emergence of Institutions that Reverse Freshwater Salinization: An Agent-based Modeling Approach

· Faisal Alghamdi, M.S. 2021, North Carolina State University.  Thesis: A Dynamic Pricing Framework for Water Demand Management Using Advanced Metering Infrastructure Data

· Michael Skarbek, M.S. 2019, North Carolina State University. Thesis: Fisher Information Methods for Detecting Shifting Regimes in Water Supply Systems

· Elizabeth Ramsey, M.S. 2018, North Carolina State University. Thesis: Coupling Agent-Based Modeling and a Genetic Algorithm to Simulate Adoption of Dual-Flush Toilets Using Household Survey Data

· Jorge Pesantez, M.S. 2017 (co-advised), North Carolina State University.  Thesis: A Multi-Step Simulation-Optimization Approach to Design District Metering Areas for Water Distribution Networks

· Laura Garcia-Cuerva, M.S. 2017, North Carolina State University. Thesis: Exploring Low Impact Development Strategies for Marginalized Communities in Urbanizing Watersheds

· Michelle Schmidt, M.S. 2015, North Carolina State University. Thesis: Simulating the Selection of Municipal Water Supply Portfolios to Assess Vulnerability in a Seniority-based Water Rights Program

· Alireza Mashhadi Ali, M.S. 2014, North Carolina State University. Thesis: An integrated framework for assessing the dynamics of population growth and climate change for urban water resources management

· Kristen Drake, M.S. 2011, Texas A&M University. Thesis: Evolutionary computation approaches to address non-uniqueness in source identification of contamination in water distribution systems

· Tommi Jo Scott, M.S. 2011, Texas A&M University. Thesis: A Stormwater Footprint Game to increase stormwater sustainability awareness

· Chandana Damodaram, M.S. 2010, Texas A&M University. Thesis: Simulating and optimizing stormwater management strategies in an urban watershed

· Laurel Reichold, M.S. 2008 (co-advised), North Carolina State University. Thesis: Simulation-optimization framework to support sustainable watershed development by mimicking the pre-development flow regime

Undergraduate Students, with Thesis

· Theodore Markham, North Carolina State University, 2024. Thesis: Sociotechnical transitions in water systems: Characterizing the transition to dual system water supply in Phoenix and Cary.

· Elias Zauscher, North Carolina State University, 2023. Thesis: An Agent-based Modelling Approach to Simulate the Performance of Water Micro-trading.

· Tori Ponthier, North Carolina State University, 2021. Thesis: Effects on Urban Water Consumption and Water Distribution Infrastructure During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

· Jacob Monroe, North Carolina State University, 2016. Thesis: Genetic Programming Approaches to Identify Log Reduction Models for UV Reactors

· Kate Mueller, North Carolina State University, 2016. Thesis: Modeling the Effects of Social Dynamics on Water Conservation Technology Adoption

· James East, North Carolina State University, 2015. Thesis: Agent-based modeling to simulate water use adaptations in the Upper Neuse River Basin

· Alyssa Politte, Texas A&M University, 2011. Thesis: Evaluating the effects of paver systems on urban development using a distributed hydrological model, Best Undergraduate Thesis Award, Texas A&M University, 2011

· Avery White, Texas A&M University, 2011. Thesis: Translation, Optimization, and Parallelization of Genetic Algorithms: A Discourse of Implementation into C++

· Ramiro Martinez, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Scholar, Texas A&M Univ., 2010. Thesis: Climate Change Impacts on Watershed Hydrology

· William Saour, Texas A&M University, 2009. Thesis: Feasibility Study of Rainwater Harvesting on Texas A&M University Campus