International Environmental Modelling and Software Society
The iEMSs Board has confirmed the 2022 awards proposed by the Awards Committee and we used the opportunity of the iEMSs Biennial Conference in Brussels to announce and celebrate outstanding contributions to the Society in the following categories:
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research has focused primarily on geo-analysis model sharing and reuse on the web, geographic and environmental simulation, and model interoperation. He has much experience in software design and development (e.g. OpenGMS Wrapper System), and has much experience of environmental simulation, such as PM2.5 concentration simulation. He has published more than 10 papers, and most of them are focusing on the topics of software development and environmental or geographic simulation. He won the Best Paper Award in 7th Digital Earth Summit, CSDMS Syvitski Student Modeler Award (runner-up) and other awards. He also got the 2021 Excellence in Review Award of EMS.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Dr. Zhang’s research interests are geographic and environmental simulation, and also has much experience in software design and development about environmental modeling. His research interests and experience are highly related with EMS’s scope and aims. He is one of the main developers of OpenGMS related software. He published several relevant papers about these topics. He also has much experience in conference, including the conference secretariat of the International Workshop on Open Geographical Modeling and Simulation (50 participants), the 1st Regional Conference on Environmental Modeling and Software (Asian Region) (200 participants), and the 1st National Geo-analysis Model Training Workshop of China (1400 participants).
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Dr. Zhang participated many relevant conferences about environmental modeling, including the iEMSs official conferences in 2018, 2019, 2020. He was the conference secretariat of the 1st Regional Conference on Environmental Modeling and Software (Asian Region) in 2019. He is the peer reviewer of EMS, and got the 2021 Excellence in Review Award of EMS.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Min Chen is a full professor and the Vice Director of Key Lab of Virtual Geographic Environment (Ministry of Education of PRC), China. His research interests are geographic modeling and simulation, virtual geographic environment (VGEs). He is the group leader of the Open Geographic Modeling and Simulation System (OpenGMS) team. He serves as the Vice-President of iEMSs (2020-), Chair of Modeling Geographic System Committee of International Geographical Union (IGU) (2020-). He is the executive editor of Annals of GIS, a managing editor of Environmental Modelling & Software. He has published 140+ journal papers, including these in top journals such as Science, Earth-Science Reviews. He has won the “Waldo Tobler Young Researcher Award” in GIScience awarded by Austrian Academy of Sciences, Grand Prize of Progress award in Geographic Information Technology, 2021 Global Frontier Science and Technology Young Scientist and many other awards.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Prof. Chen’ research interests are geographic and environmental modeling and simulation. He is member of iEMSs since 2016, and a board member since 2018. He is a fellow of iEMSs and editor of EMS, and has the passion and ability to further promote and serve the iEMSs. He is the group leader of the Open Geographic Modeling and Simulation System (OpenGMS, https://geomodeling.njnu.edu.cn/) team. He organized several national and international modeling conferences in 2019, 2020, 2021, including the first iEMSs regional conference.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Prof. Chen serves as the Vice-President of iEMSs from 2020, and is a dedicated leader for iEMSs and contributed a lot to the development of iEMSs. He and his team operated official WeChat (the most popular social app in China) account for the iEMSs official journals EMS, started from the end of 2019, and now the account has over 2000+ followers. He has kept updating it every week to promote one paper in EMS.
Information about the nominated candidate:
I am head of Atmospheric Chemistry and Effects, at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH). My own research focuses on the integrated modelling and assessment of impacts of air pollution and climate change on human health and ecosystems. This includes approaches for improving the integration of models and environmental sensors, and the development and application of conceptual models to integrate human and ecosystem health impact assessment.
In 2016, I was awarded a fellowship by the iEMSs. I am an editor of Environmental Modelling & Software and a member of the editorial board of the journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL). I was awarded a fellowship of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2019. I hold a position as an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School since 2014 and was appointed there as a Honorary Associate Professor in 2017. In 2020, I was awarded a Honorary Professorship at the University of Edinburgh.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have had the privilege of being president for iEMSs over the past two years and have, with the support of the office and board, and the society’s membership, started several developments which I would like to see through to fruition (see prev. contributions).
I am committed to complete the activities under way and would like to put in additional efforts in the coming two years to improve the engagement and involvement of early career researchers in the iEMSs board and office. In addition, I would like to increase our diversity and champion outreach activities in world regions where iEMSs is so far not well known and established, e.g. through partnering with other organisations and holding regional conferences.
In 2024, I intend to support a new incoming president and step down.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Wang is a Senior R&D Staff of environmental and biological sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a Joint Faculty Professor of computer and data science at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville). Dr. Wang leads multidisciplinary teams on cutting-edge research in science-inspired AI/machine learning, high-performance computing, Earth and environmental system modeling, advanced manufacturing, developmental biology, and geographic information system. Dr. Wang has made significant contributions to several national-scope projects, such as Earth system modeling, Exascale computing project, TeraGrid, and embryogenesis. Dr. Wang is the author (co-author) of more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and the PI (co-PI) of over 30 projects (over 15 million in total) funded by a variety of agencies and private sections.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
The iEMSs is a unique organization that supports the efficient comunication and knowledge sharing regarding environmental modeling and software. I have enjoyed the work with the president, secretory, treasurer, vice presidents, and other board memeber in the past several years. As we are all working through the pandemics, I would like to advocate and promote the iEMSs through conference orginzation, academic publications, and presentations in the coming years.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I have been involved with the iEMSs society activities for many years, including reviewing the papers, engaging in community discussions, participating in conferences, and contributing papers to the Journal of Environmental Modeling and Software. As a staff scientist at ORNL, I lead multidisciplinary teams on large-scale environmental and climate modeling using AI and high-performance computing. I have also served as a board member of the International Environmental Modelling & Software Society for many years.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Jiping JIANG is an associate professor (research) in Southern University of Science and Technology, China. His research interests include: 1) Hydroinformatics for urban water environment management, including advanced models, algorithms, monitoring, software and hardware development and DSS integration; 2) data-intensive knowledge discovery in surfacewater enviornment. Dr. Jiang has host 16 scientific research projects as PI including two NSFC projects, participated in 20 scientific research projects. He published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal papers such as Environ. Model. Softw, ES&T Water, Water. Res, including 33 papers as the first author or corresponding author. His papers has over 1800 citations with an h-index of 18. 10 national software copyrights/invention patents were approved. Dr. Jiang is also a committee member of IWA-YWP China, Youth Committee of China Urban Water Associate. He received Gold Medal of Water Star Award for New Scientists and Engineers at 2021, issued
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Prof. Jiang is an expert on water quality related modelling, management and DSS. He is always full of passions and energy to iEMSs activities, where the scope and aims are perfectly fit his internal willingness. He has good connections with modelling and software streams of environmental management and water services, so called digital water or smart environmental protection in industry, and has good links to academic circles of Hydroinformatics centralize in EU and familiar with hydrologists in China. He serves as the vice director of Shenzhen municipal engineering Lab of Environ. IoTs and review panels of local governments.
To be a board member, I believe jiping will largely extend the influence of iEMSs on the circles focusing water quality issues.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Jiping joined the society as early as in 2012 and continuously attended iEMSs general meeting since 2016 in Toulouse. He helped to organize the 1st regional conference in Nanjing at 2019. He arranged the society president to visit his campus twice to expand influence of the society. As a reviewer of EM&S, he contributes every year. He is always happy to introduce our society to young generations and peers during academic and industrial activities. His contributions on the science of EM&S is very unique on the catchment water quality modeling and management.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Takuya Iwanaga is a Research Software Developer with the Institute for Water Futures, combining software and model development expertise to inform policy development and management actions. His primary research focus is on the methods and approaches to develop integrated models to explore complex and inter-linked socio-environmental issues. He is an active contributor to several open-source software for scientific research.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
My motivation for joining the iEMSs Board is to be (more) actively involved in coordination and planning efforts. As Secretary, I would be interested in investigating possible streamlining of day-to-day operations and communication processes to promote and increase awareness of activities by both the iEMSs organization and its members. I would also lead or contribute to committees devoted to improving model interoperability, transparency and reproducibility, and those working to enhance the visibility of early-career researchers.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Takuya is a frequent attendee to iEMSs conferences and is a current board member. He has published both journal articles and software on integrated environmental modelling and sensitivity analysis.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Prof. Kolagani obtained B.Tech. from IIT Madras in 1988 and M.S. from USA in 1992. He worked for three years in the USA developing Microsoft Windows based consumer software products and returned to India in 1995 and worked on several sponsored research projects: DST (5), DoLR-TDET (2), MeitY (1), MHRD-SPARC (1), GoAP (1), and APPI (1), developing and deploying simplified, open source public participatory GIS (PP-GIS) and participatory modelling (PM) solutions for use by school children, farmers, and NGO field staff in the following village development activities: Organic Farming (1995-2001), Community Forestry (2001-2007), and Rainwater Harvesting (2007-2013). I completed Ph.D. on PP-GIS and PM from IIT Madras in 2016, worked as an Associate Professor at IIIT Sri City (AP) during 2016-2019, and joined CUTM as a Professor in 2019.
He teaches project-based courses on IT/Web/GIS Systems, consult with Government and industry (https://tnega.tn.gov.in, https://respark.iitm.ac.in/collaborate/incubate, and others) on PP-GIS, remote sensing and AI/ML projects, organise PM sessions and workshops at international conferences (https://www.iemss.org/, https://www.mssanz.org.au/) in USA, Europe and Australia, and publish papers. Together with a few other international collaborators, he started a ‘Community of Practice’ (http://participatorymodeling.org/) to promote PP-GIS and PM.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
He is well connected with numerous NGOs (WOTRO etc.) and science organizations in India, is very diligent and responsible. Has been with the society already for many years and will be an excellent voice for India and other non-OECD countries.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Has been active in reviewing papers and organizing sessions for iEMSs and other societies for the last 10-15 or so years. Now coordinating Stream A at IEMSS’22. An active player at participatorymodeling.com. Was offering webinars on participatory GIS.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Saman Razavi is an Associate Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering at the School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan. His research is at the science-policy interface, bridging hydrological modelling and prediction of flood and drought to integrated management of water resources and decision and policy making. He develops methods based in systems and data sciences, including sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, and machine learning. He is the lead developer of the VARS-Tool, which is a toolbox for sensitivity and uncertainty analysis (https://vars-tool.com/), and the Principal Investigator of the Integrated Modelling Program for Canada (https://gwf.usask.ca/impc/). Dr. Razavi has received several awards including the 2020 Early Career Research Excellence Award from the International Environmental Modeling and Software Society and 2019 Young Scientist Award from the Canadian Geophysical Union.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Dr. Razavi is a strong supporter of iEMSs and was the invited speaker at our inaugural iEMSs Webinar. He is has a strong track record in environmental modelling and software, an excellent publication record and has already contributed a lot of ideas and suggestions on iEMSs outreach activities.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Dr. Razavi has published multiple papers in Environmental modelling and software, has contributed to iEMSs conferences and outreach activities.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Prof. Ke Zhang is currently a professor of Hydrology and Water Resources at Hohai University. He has published more than 120 journal articles, including 90+ SCI-indexed papers published by Nature, Nature Climate Change, PNAS, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Journal of Hydrology, Water Resources Research and others in the fields of earth sciences and hydrology and water resources. He also serves as secretary for International Society for Environmental Modelling and Software, associate editor for Journal of Hydrology, Frontiers in Earth Science, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, Hydrology Research, and Water Science and Engineering. Due to his excellent contributions to his study field, he has been awarded 3 provincial and ministerial-level scientific awards as the leading contributor.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Information about the nominated candidate:
I am Vidya Samadi, a female tenure-track academic at Clemson University, USA. I am the Director of Clemson Hydrosystem and Hydroinformatics Research (HHR) group. My research focuses on leveraging advances in hydroinformatics & cyber-physical systems to address challenges associated with water resources modeling. I am a founding member of Women in AI for Water (WomenInAI4Water;funded by NSF) that aims to strengthen the diversity and increase female representation and participation in AI and working towards gender-inclusive water data analytics and modeling at academia. My research is funded by NSF, NOAA, USGS, Savannah River National Lab, and the US DOT. I have authored/co?authored >35 journal articles. Prior to joining Clemson University in spring 2020, I was a Research Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UofSC and a postdoc at a NOAA-CISA center as well as a Research Fellow at the Dept. of Civil Engineering, Cardiff Univ., U.K.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have a strong set of skills that uniquely qualify me for this job. I have been in a leadership position, and I currently chair the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Informatics Committee and oversee the Hydroinformatics Symposium, Informatics Blog, etc. In addition,I actively participate in the Society of Women Engineers mentoring and outreach programs. I have laid out an exciting plan to help encourage the growth of our underrepresented minority students, particularly women in engineering, by offering meaningful research opportunities, mentoring female students,& emphasizing empathic communication to share research outcomes & their significance with society at large. I am interested in serving iEMSs meetings, serving on committees, etc.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
My contributions to the iEMSs include service as a session leader/session organizer, participation as a reviewer for the iEMSs conference proceedings & the Environmental Modeling & Software, etc. I have also contributed research articles to Environmental Modeling & Software. I have developed several hydroinformatics software and packages including Flood Analytics Information System (FAIS), Flood Image Classifier, Spatial Temporal Analysis Tool, etc. I maintain a GitHub organization where much of the code resulting from the HHR group is released free and open source.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr Wenyan Wu is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Hydrology & Water Resources in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, the University of Melbourne, and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellow. She has over ten years of experience across academia and industry. Dr Wu has a background in environmental modelling and optimisation using numerical methods, with applications in optimal design and operation of water distribution systems and management of water resource systems. She also worked as an Environmental Engineer, when she conducted flood risk assessment and developed flood mitigation strategies. Her current research focuses on the use of numerical and statistical modelling tools to solve environmental engineering problems, including flood modelling, water resources management, machine learning for environmental modelling, multiobjective optimisation and its application in decision-support.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have been a member of iEMSs since 2011 and a board member since 2020. I have been sharing research ideas with the iEMSs community by attending the iEMSs conferences and publishing papers in EMS. I have also served as an associate editor for EMS since 2020. I would like to continue my contribution to the society by participating in its decision-making process to maintain its strength.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Information about the nominated candidate:
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I would continue with EIC position of SESMO which is published by SESMO and Chair the Awards Committee of iEMSs if required.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
See above as examples
I have 6 highly cited papers in EMS and over 10,000 citations, according to Web of Science
Organiser of sessions and workshops at iEMSs meetings over the years
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Nejadhashemi is a Michigan State University (MSU) Foundation Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering and the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in the area of Bioenvironmental and Water Resources Engineering from the University of Maryland. Before joining MSU, he worked as a core member of an interdepartmental–interagency watershed management technical team that guided the development of watershed restoration and action plan strategies. In his current position, he leads an interdisciplinary research team focused on incorporating an ecosystem approach to address water resource problems, including water quantity and quality. He is also leading the Decision Support and Informatics Units and the Center for Intelligent Water Resources Engineering at MSU. As a leading expert in water resources modeling, Nejadhashemi examines water and its distribution, movement, and quality in various environments.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have been an active member of the society and chair of the upcoming iEMSs 2024 meeting that will be held in East Lansing, Michigan. I am passionate about applications of system approaches to improve water and environmental quality, especially in the sustainable agricultural intensification domain.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
The summary of my contributions is as follows:
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Dan Ames is a Professor in Civil & Construction Engineering at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. His teaching and research interests include hydroinformatics, software development, water science big data, geographic information systems, and environmental web applications. Dr. Ames leads and contributes to several open source software projects including MapWindow, DotSpatial, HydroDesktop, and Tethys Platform. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Environmental Modelling & Software, is a past president of iEMSs and serves on several professional committees.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I’m pleased to self-nominate for the position of iEMSs Board Member. In the past I have served as a board member, vice president, and president of the society. In these capacities I have tried to help improve and grow the society through active conference planning and organizing (in particular 2014 in San Diego) as well as through helping update and maintain our publication web site and provide a connection to the EMS journal. I would like to continue to serve the society as a board member to help further these activities and to contribute in new and meaningful ways as needed.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I was a board member of iEMSs from 2008-2012. I served as iEMSs VP 2012-2016, and iEMSs President 2016-2020. I co-organized the 2014 conference in San Diego and helped launch our regional meetings by co-organizing 2019 in Nanjing, China. I’m an active and enthusiastic promoter and supporter of the society!
Information about the nominated candidate:
Susan Cuddy is a researcher in CSIRO. She has been in working with and within multi-disciplinary teams and stakeholder groups to deliver integrated assessment tools to support NRM decision-making – through all software and project life-cycle phases from initial elicitation of user requirements, development and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, reporting and dissemination of results and methods. Her key research interests continue to be in the fields of knowledge representation; science packaging for multiple audiences; stakeholder (and staff) participatory processes; and in building a healthy scientific modelling community through active participation in Australian and international modelling societies (MSSANZ and iEMSs). She now is the association secretary of MSSANZ and a board member of iEMSs.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Susan Cuddy has good experience for society building and managment. She worked for MSSANZ for many years, and is an active member of iEMSs. Since 2020, she joined the board of iEMSs as a board member. With her help and suggestions, we can develop a better iEMSs.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Susan Cuddy is an active member of iEMSs, she attend many conferences hold by iEMSs, and co-organized last regional conference in Sydney. Since 2020, she joined the board of iEMSs as a board member and provided some suggestions to promote our iEMSs.
Information about the nominated candidate:
ALEXEY A. VOINOV, University of Technology Sydney, School of Information, Systems and Modeling. He is the Director of Center on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living (PERSWADE).
2017 – present Distinguished Professor of Spatio-Temporal Systems Modeling for Sustainability Science, School of Systems, Management and Leadership Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
2015 – 2017 Professor of Spatio-temporal Modeling for Sustainability Science, Department of Geoinformation Processing, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) University of Twente, The Netherlands
2009 – present Associate Professor, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) University of Twente, The Netherlands
2007-2009 Chesapeake Community Modeling Program Manager, Chesapeake Research Consortium, Edgewater, MD 21037
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Alex is a former president of iEMSs, and now is a board member of iEMSs. He is an active member of iMESs and always undertakes the duty on promoting iEMSs at any time in any places. He has valuable experience for the development of iEMSs.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Alex is a former president of iEMSs, and now is a board member of iEMSs. He is an active member of iMESs and always undertakes the duty on promoting iEMSs at any time in any places. With his effects, the second iEMSs regional conference has been successfully held in Sydney last year.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Junzhi Liu is a professor in the Center for the Pan-Third Pole Environment, Lanzhou University. His research interests mainly include land surface modeling and spatio-temporal data mining. He earned his PhD degree from University of Chinese Academy of Science in 2013. From 2013 to 2021, he worked as a lecturer and then an associate professor in School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University. In 2021, He moved to Lanzhou University and works as a professor there. He has published 86 peer reviewed papers, including 9 ESI highly cited papers, and have about 3000 citations with a h-index of 24. He and his team developed the SEIMS (Spatially Explicit Integrated Modeling System) watershed modeling framework, which has been widely used in different types of watersheds. He won the second prize of natural science from Ministry of Education, China, in 2017, and the special prize of geographic information technology progress from the China Association for Geospatial Information Society in 2021.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Prof. Junzhi Liu is an expert on land surface modeling, especially on the aspects of integrated watershed modeling framework. He and his team developed the SEIMS modeling framework, which attracted much attention in the field. Three papers of the SEIMS framework have been published in “Environmental Modeling and Software”. He has been an iEMSs board member since 2020 and is active in the society. I think he can continue to make contributions to the society especially on the aspects of land surface modeling.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Prof. Junzhi Liu has been an iEMSs board member since 2020 and is active in the society. He serves as a conscientious reviewer and earned the “Excellence in review Award 2021” from the journal of Environmental Modelling & Software. He also wants to continue to serve the community in the future. On the aspects of science, he is an expert on integrated watershed modeling framework, and I believe he will advance the science of environmental modelling and software in this research direction.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Cheng-Zhi Qin received his Ph.D. of GIS at Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004. Now he is a professor in State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include digital terrain analysis, watershed modeling and scenario analysis, and intelligent geographical modeling. He has published 100+ peer-reviewed papers (SCI citation: 1600+; SCI h-index=23; Google scholar citation: 3000+). The digital terrain analysis algorithms proposed by his papers (Qin et al., IJGIS, 2007; Qin et al., Precision Agriculture, 2011) have been implemented and integrated in ArcGIS (since V10.6) and SAGA (since v2.1.3) respectively. More information about Dr. Cheng-Zhi Qin can be found from his official homepage (http://people.ucas.ac.cn/~qincz?language=en) and his Webpage@Publons (https://publons.com/researcher/953428/cheng-zhi-qin).
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
As an iEMSs Board member (2020~2022), Dr. Cheng-Zhi Qin heartily hopes to continuously make more service contributions to iEMSs, especially on those which could foster the research on watershed modeling and scenario analysis combining with intelligent geographical modeling, and further promote the connection and collaboration between Chinese researchers and their international colleagues in EMS.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Dr. Cheng-Zhi Qin has been working on research issues closely related to those core topics of iEMSs. He has been serving as an iEMSs Board member (2020~2022, attended each of board meetings) as well as an active and competent reviewer for the journal “Environmental Modelling and Software”. He attended to the former iEMS conference and regional conference. He also participates in works of organizations such as Open Modeling Foundation (as representative of OMF member organizations) and International Society of Geomorphometry (as Councilor). Thus he may advance the potential collaboration of iEMSs and other related organizations. His recent research interest on watershed modeling and scenario analysis combining with intelligent geographical modeling may advance the science of EMS.
Information about the nominated candidate:
I am the leading hydrologist at The University of Sydney and an expert in quantitative Hydrology and Catchment Management and simulation modelling. My main research focus is on sustainable water management to balance climate and human impacts. I combine remote sensing, field data and simulation modelling to develop quantitative tools scaling from the field to the continent.
I have extensive experience working with industry in projects with the Cotton industry, Grains industry, Icon water, and more recently with a European/Australian consortium of SMEs in the water value chain. I have worked in Indonesia, Uruguay, Mexico and India, delivering capacity building programs and providing policy and management advice.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I am the secretary of the the sister organisation MSSANZ and would like to be involved with iEMSS to provide linkages between the two societies. I have a specific interest in the student awards area and finding ways of increasing the society’s ability to attract new talent to the meetings.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I have proposed and chaired sessions at iEMSS. I have chaired the student awards comittee for 2 iEMSS meetings. I was the lead convenor for the MODSIM2021 conference in Sydney AU, in which iEMSS joined to organise a “regional conference” (regrettably limited due to COVID). I am on the editorial board of Environmental Modelling and Software.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Val Snow is an agroecosystem systems modeller at AgResearch in New Zealand. Her research focuses on: the development and use of models and tools to support land use policy development and implementation; innovation and sustainability in pastoral agricultural systems; and resilience in agri-food systems. Val is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Agricultural Systems and serves on the Editorial Board of Environmental Modelling & Software. Her research and leadership have been recognised with an award of a Biennial Medal from iEMSs the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society in 2018 and in 2019 with a Fellowship of the Modelling & Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
The ethos/aims of iEMSs towards open, robust and inclusive modelling practices are close to my heart. The conferences organized under the auspices of iEMSs are always only my must-attend list. I have gained a lot through past interactions with the Society and would like to give back if I can.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Val has contributed to the iEMSs society through several strands:
Val’s contribution to the science of environmental modelling has primarily been in the area of pastoral farming systems and pasture ecosystems along with developing modelling to help predict the effects of these systems on the environment for the purposes of land use policy and regulation.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr Giorgio Mannina is Professor of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering at the Engineering Department of Palermo University – Italy. His research interest and focus is on: advanced wastewater treatments (MBR, MBBR, hybrid processes, IFAS, Granular systems etc..), BNR processes, environmental water quality mathematical modelling etc. He is authors of more than 350 papers of which >100 on ISI Journals and Editors of around 10 books with more than 30 authored chapters. He has been invited to give several plenary/keynotes and invited talks, seminars and lecturers in the international conferences as well as the universities/research institutions. Prof. Mannina has been visiting Professor/Researcher in several Universities: Columbia University, New York (USA), Tongji University (Shanghai, Cina), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, (Belgium), Laval University (Canada), The University of Queensland, Australia, Gdansk University
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I’m member of the society since 2008 and I’m really interested in contributing to the growth and overall activities. I’m very interested in continuing my activity in contributing to the organization of biennal conferences
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
My activities are summarized as reported below:
Information about the nominated candidate:
Georgii Alexandrov, a member of the current iEMSs board, joined the Society in 2006. His contribution to the Society included service as session/workshop organizer (2006 – workshop organizer in Burlington, 2008 – session organizer in Barcelona, 2010 – session organizer in Ottawa, 2012 – session organizer in Leiptzig, 2014 – workshop organizer in San-Diego, 2016 – workshop organizer in Toulouse). He is interested in promoting such activities as community-based documentation and evaluation of environmental models. Georgii Alexandrov is also a member of the Ecological Modelling (a research journal published by Elsevier) editorial board, Editor-in-Chief of the Carbon Balance and Management (a research journal published by SpringerNature), and senior researcher at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Russian Academy of Sciences).
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
Georgii Alexandrov is interested in promoting such activities as community-based documentation and evaluation of environmental models through input as a group or thread moderator.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Georgii Alexandrov contribution to the Society included service as session/workshop organizer (2006 – workshop organizer in Burlington, 2008 – session organizer in Barcelona, 2010 – session organizer in Ottawa, 2012 – session organizer in Leiptzig, 2014 – workshop organizer in San-Diego, 2016 – workshop organizer in Toulouse), a member of international scientific committee of the First regional conference in Nanjing (2019), a member of election committee since 2020. His most recent publication
Alexandrov GA, Ginzburg VA, Insarov GE, Romanovskaya AA. CMIP6 model projections leave no room for permafrost to persist in Western Siberia under the SSP5-8.5 scenario. Climatic Change. 2021;169:42
proposes a method for combining model outputs proceeding from model-to-data comparison.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Ioannis N. Athanasiadis is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Ioannis researches the enabling role of artificial intelligence for investigating nature, and data science applications in the green life sciences. His expertise lies with machine learning, big data, and knowledge engineering. At Wageningen University, he supervises one post-doc and five PhD students, and is the principal investigator for two major European grants on big data for data-driven agriculture: CYBELE and DRAGON. Ioannis teaches in the Deep Learning and Smart Environments courses. He was the founding coordinator of the Data Science Minor at Wageningen University and set-up two new courses on Big Data and Linked Data.
He has contributed more than 100 scientific papers related to the science of information in environmental and agricultural sciences and has received several awards for as a teacher, researcher and mentor, by iEMSs, IEEE, ACM, SISO, Elsevier etc.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
He has excellent knowledge of the financial background of iEMSs and his advice and support to presidents, office and boards has been instrumental in steering iEMSs in a stable and innovative manner. Continuing as treasurer, he would be perfectly placed to both provide guidance to and build up future capabilities in ECRs and junior office members to fulfil this role in the future.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
Ioannis is the founding managing editor of the new open-access journal Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling, while he also serves as an associate editor of Environmental Modelling and Software, chairman of the IFIP Working Group on Computers and the Environment, and treasurer of iEMSs and member of the Office over the past 12 years. He has contributed actively to the organization of several international conferences, academic workshops, student groups, and capacity-building programs in the developing world.
Information about the nominated candidate:
I am a Research Group Leader at Berkeley National Laboratory and hold research appointments at the US Bureau of Reclamation, UC Berkeley and UC Merced. I trained originally as an irrigation engineer at Cranfield University in England and received a PhD in Water resource Systems Engineering from Cornell in the USA. I have conducted research in environmental decision support, agricultural water quality and watershed management in the San Joaquin Valley of California for over 40 years and have mentored students from more than a dozen countries in my program. I am an iEMSs Fellow and Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, (ASCE) the Environmental Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and the International Symposium of Environmental Software Systems (ISESS).
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have served as an iEMSs vice president for the past 4 years and as chair of the Conference Committee. Dan Ames and I were conveners of the successful iEMSs conference in San Diego in 2014 and I worked closely with the team from Colorado State University and with Ann and Jiri on the logistics of the current conference in Brussels. I would like to serve one more term to lend my support to the iEMSs 2024 at Michigan State University in the USA.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I have served as a reviewer of the journal Environmental Modeling and Software since its inception and have been recognized by the Society for my review contributions. I have also served as an iEMSs Vice President for the past 4 years as Chair of the Conference Committee and have been actively engaged providing assistance to conveners. I was elected Fellow at the Vermont iEMSs conference in 2006 and have made presentations and led conference sessions at every iEMSs conference save the first. We are a close-knit and highly relevant organization – I will do my best to sustain our vitality and do what I can do increase US and interational membership and attendance at our conferences.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Knightes is a Research Environmental Engineer (level equivalent of full professor) at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development since September 2002. His research focuses on the development, application, and evaluation of environmental contaminant fate and transport models for watersheds, fresh water bodies, and estuaries, with particular interest in researching processes governing contaminants and incorporating algorithms describing these processes into numerical, mechanistic modeling frameworks. Contaminants of interest include nutrients, mercury, metals, organic compounds (e.g., PAHs, PCBs, pesticides), and emerging contaminants (e.g., nanomaterials). While at EPA, he has received 2 US EPA Gold Medals and a US EPA Silver Medal. He received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University, MS in Environmental Health Engineering from Northwestern University, and BS in Physics from University of Rochester.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have become a member on the board in 2018. In the last year, I became the lead of the outreach committee and have been working with the president and others to improve communication with the society. For example, we have had started quarterly webinars and newsletters, started using twitter again, and are working on updating the website. I would like to continue the development of these as well as improving other means of keeping the members of the community informed as well as reaching out beyond our membership to communicate the interesting and important research and science being done by members of the society. I am also a member of the conference committee, and I look forward to increasing involvement there .
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I am currently on the outreach and conference committees, and I have been actively working with the president and other board members in those regards, and I look forward to continuing with those. In my work, I have been actively involved in developing, applying, and evaluating contaminant fate and transport, numerical, mechanistic modeling. I am the developer of Spreadsheet-based Ecological Risk Assessment for the Fate of Mercury (SERAFM), which was published in EMS, and is used in regulatory applications for mercury in the US. I also was the lead author and co-developer for a complete architectural overhaul of the Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (upgrade to WASP8) Advanced Toxicant Module, where we introduced a state variable for nanomaterials, which was published in EMS.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Dr. Peter Khaiter is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Technology, York University, Canada. He received his BSc and MSc degrees in Economic Cybernetics, MSc in Environmental Studies and PhD in Mathematical Modelling/Information Technology.
His research is closely related to the environmental modelling and software domain in a unique diversity of areas such as sustainable environmental management; climate change; optimal control, AI and machine learning techniques for environmental applications; economic assessment and management of natural resources; systems of environmental monitoring; water quality and hydrobiological methods; design and development of environmental information systems; ecosystem services modelling and stability; environmental decision support systems; hydrological forecasting and flood prediction. The results of his research studies have been presented in about 150 publications including books, chapters, journal articles and conference papers.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I will be pleased and honoured to further contribute to the Society and, if elected, I anticipate working as a team member with our President, Office and Board towards fostering dynamics of the Society in a number of directions, including more active and diverse operations, both during the biennial Congresses and between them. In particular, I am planning to focus on updating our By-Laws, conference operations as well as widening geographical representation and diversity.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I am a member of the Society since 2008 having actively contributed to the iEMSs operations through serving on the Board and Office as a Vice-President particularly chairing the Elections Committee and successfully running the process in the three most recent rounds. I also dedicate my energy and expertise to promoting the aims of the Society by acting as a member of the International Scientific Committee of the 1st Regional Conference on Environmental Modeling and Software, session organizer and chair of the iEMSs Congresses as well as presenting and reviewing the conference papers.
Information about the nominated candidate:
I am an Associate Professor at the School of Information Technology, York University, Canada.
My primary research interests are in applying Information Technology for environmental sustainability assessment of natural resources with the focus on natural waters. This includes the development of modelling tools based on Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Explainable AI techniques, process-based models, and hybrid approaches for environmental resource management and optimization of environmental monitoring. Uncertainty evaluation of predictive models, both data-driven and conceptual, and theoretical aspects of model development and data preprocessing and transformation for improved modelling results are also a part of my research program. The list of my publications includes two books and over 100 titles of peer-reviewed works.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I think we can maintain the achieved scientific level and strengthen our society by participating in iEMSs initiatives, distributing information on our undertakings and congresses among wider scientific audience around the Globe. iEMSs congresses provide excellent opportunities for societal growth. The opportunity to publish papers in prestigious congress proceedings in a timely manner attracts young talents and established researchers to the venues and strengthens scientific and financial aspects of the society. I would like to propose developing a standardized workflow for publishing conference proceedings including full-length papers within a few months after an iEMSs congress. I am ready to provide help to congress organizers if such is required.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I joined iEMSs in 2008. Since then, I have presented my papers in all subsequent iEMSs congresses. I have organized conference sessions since 2010 for all subsequent iEMSs congresses bringing new members to our society. I reviewed papers for iEMSs congresses and EMS Journal. I took part in iEMSs initiatives and contributed to position papers. As an active iEMSs Board member, I participated in online discussions and decision making. I served as iEMSs secretary from 2014 to 2020 and currently, I am an iEMSs Vice-President. In 2020, I joined EMS Editorial Board as a manuscript editor. In 2015, I received the 2014 Outstanding Reviewer Award from the EMS journal. In 2020 I was awarded the title of Fellow International Environmental Modelling and Software Society.
Information about the nominated candidate:
Andrea E. Rizzoli holds a Ph.D. in Control Engineering and Informatics awarded from Politecnico di Milano (Italy). He is a senior research scientist at IDSIA and a professor at SUPSI. His interests are in simulation and in decision support systems and he has been involved in the development of various simulation models in a number of different contexts, from natural resources modelling to logistics and industrial systems. He has authored more than 100 publication son these subjects. In 2001 he has been awarded the ´Early Career Research Excellence´ award by the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and in 2004 he became a Fellow of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, whose aim is to develop and use modelling and software tools to advance the science and improve decision making with respect to resource and environmental issues. He serves editor for the international journal Environmental Modelling & Software. In 2012 he has been elected President of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society (https://www.iemss.org) for the biennium 2012-2014.
Reasons why the candidate would be suitable for an iEMSs office or board position and any topical or operational areas of iEMSs they would contribute to:
I have been a founding member of the iEMSs and I would like to keep an advisory role in the society. I am available to serve in committees as requested.
The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:
I have organised an iEMSs conference in Lugano, now too many years ago, and I have been regularly contributing to the conferences.