SPRING 2023 NEWSLETTER

Ioannis Athanasiadis

Information about the nominated candidate:

Ioannis N. Athanasiadis is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Wageningen University and Research. He investigates the enabling role of artificial intelligence for understanding nature, and big data science applications that relate to environment, agriculture, food and the quality of life. His expertise lies with machine learning, big data, and knowledge engineering.

Ioannis has extensive experience leading collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects. He has contributed more than 100 scientific papers related to the science of information in environmental sciences, and have received several awards for as a teacher, researcher and mentor. He has contributed actively to the organization of several international conferences, academic workshops, student groups, and capacity-building programs in the developing world.

He currently leads the WUR research theme on data-driven discoveries in a changing climate.

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:

Ioannis has served in various roles as officer and board member of iEMSs over many years, he has an exceptionally strong track record in environmental modelling and software and has undertaken editorial roles in ENSO, and more recently in SESMO.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

As long-term treasurer of iEMSs, he has dedicated a lot of personal time and effort in safeguarding the financial sustainability of the society.

Wenyan Wu

Information about the nominated candidate:

My name is Wenyan Wu (She/Her). I am 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. I have over ten years of experience across academia and industry. I have 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 resources systems. I also worked as an Environmental Engineer, when I conducted flood risk assessment and developed flood mitigation strategies. My current research focuses on the use of numerical and statistical modelling tools to solve environmental engineering problems, including flood modelling, water supply system design and operation, water resources management, and machine learning and multiobjective optimisation for 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 2012 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 am organising a session at the iEMSs 2024 conference. 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:

2020 – present Associate Editor, Environmental Modelling & Software (Elsevier)
2021 – present Co-Chair, The Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee
2020 – present Board Member, IEMSS – International Environmental Modelling and Software Society
2012 – present Member, IEMSS – International Environmental Modelling and Software Society
2024 Conference session organisation
2012, 2018, 2020, 2022 Conference participation and presentation

Junzhi Liu

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 90+ peer reviewed papers, including 9 ESI highly cited papers, and have over 4800 citations with a h-index of 27 (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eOB7FswAAAAJ&hl=en). He and his team developed the SEIMS (Spatially Explicit Integrated Modeling System) watershed modeling framework (https://github.com/lreis2415/SEIMS), 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 info

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 an associate editor of the journal Environmental Modelling & Software since 2023. He serves as a conscientious reviewer and earned the “Excellence in review Award 2021” from EMS. 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.

Tony Jakeman

Information about the nominated candidate:

Tony Jakeman is Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society and Director of the Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management (iCAM) Centre, The Australian National University, and member of the Institute for Water Futures. He is an Environmental Modeller with over 450 publications. He has been a principal supervisor to over 60 graduated PhD students. Since 1997 he has directed the iCAM Centre pursuing methods and applications of integrated assessment and decision support on water resource issues. Other scientific and organisational activities include: Editor-in-Chief, Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (open access journal), Honorary Editor, Environmental Modelling and Software (Elsevier); Foundation and Past President, International Environmental Modelling and Software Society; Past President, Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, Inc.; Past Vice-President, International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation.

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. Tony Jakeman is an expert on numerical and computational mathematics, simulation and modelling, and surfacewater hydrology. He is foundation and past president of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society. I think he can continue to make contributions to the society via his rich experience.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Prof. Tony Jakeman is foundation and past president of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society. He also wants to continue to serve the community in the future. Because of his rich experience, I believe he will advance the science of environmental modelling and software in this research direction.

Fengyuan Zhang

Information about the nominated candidate:

Fengyuan Zhang is a professor (associate) in the School of Environment, Nanjing Normal University. His research interests mainly include model sharing and interoperability. He earned his PhD degree from Nanjing Normal University in 2021. From 2022 to 2023, he worked as a postdoc in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In 2024, He moved to Nanjing Normal University and works as a professor (associate) there. He has published 21 peer reviewed papers and have over 377 citations with a h-index of 11 (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MK9D8BoAAAAJ& hl=en). He won the Best Paper Award in 7th Digital Earth Summit in 2018, and the Excellence in Review Award of Environment Modelling & Software 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:

Dr. Fengyuan Zhang is an expert on model sharing and interoperability, especially on the web-based software and tools about service-oriented model sharing. He has been an iEMSs board member since 2022 and is active in the society. I think he can continue to make contributions to the society especially on the aspects of model sharing and interoperability.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Dr. Fengyuan Zhang has been an iEMSs board member since 2022. He serves as a conscientious reviewer and earned the “Excellence in Review Award 2021” from EMS. He also wants to continue to serve the community in the future. On the aspects of science, he is an expert on model sharing and interoperability software and tools, and I believe he will advance the science of environmental modelling and software in this research direction.

Cheng-Zhi Qin

Information about the nominated candidate:

Prof. 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, digital soil mapping, watershed modeling and scenario analysis, and intelligent geographical modeling (particularly on designing new methods within these domains). He has published 100+ peer-reviewed papers (SCI citation: 2000+; SCI h-index=28; Google scholar citation: 4000+). 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 Prof. Cheng-Zhi Qin can be found from his official homepage (http://people.ucas.ac.cn/~qincz?language=en) .

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 (2020~2024), Prof. 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:

Prof. 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 (2020~2024, 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. Currently he is one of Organisers of Stream C in iEMSs 2024 Biennial 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.

Dan Ames

Information about the nominated candidate:

Prof. Ames is the original developer and project manager of several open source GIS based software tools including the widely used MapWindow GIS, DotSpatial Library and HydroDesktop data management system (www.hydrodesktop.org). Prof. Ames’ research interests and publications include geospatial and hydrologic web services, hydrologic information systems, probabilistic watershed modeling, uncertainty characterization, terrain analysis, evapotranspiration, immersive virtual reality visualization, and open hardware data sensor networks. Prof. Ames has conducted and overseen numerous GIS and engineering software development projects funded by NSF, EPA, USGS, NASA, and various state and local agencies and private industry. He is presently the Editor-in-Chief of two academic journals, Environmental Modelling & Software and Open Water and is past president of the International Environmental Modelling & Software Society.

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. Daniel P. Ames is an expert on geospatial data analysis, hydroinformatics, engineering software applications for hydrology, alternative energy, uncertainty analysis, and GIS programming. He is past president of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society and co-editor-in-chief of Environment Modelling and Software. I think he can continue to make contributions to the society via his rich experience.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Prof. Daniel P. Ames is past president of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society and co-editor-in-chief of Environment Modelling and Software. He also wants to continue to serve the community in the future. Because of his rich experience, I believe he will advance the science of environmental modelling and software in this research direction.

Susan Cuddy

Information about the nominated candidate:

Ms. Susan Cuddy’s history in CSIRO 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 present projects include: coordination of a portfolio of projects in Asia that aim to build mutual capability in trans-boundary river planning and management; adaptation of industry-standard risk management principles for water resource planning; designing risk assessment workflows for water allocation planning. 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 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:

Ms. Susan Cuddy is an expert on knowledge representation; science packaging for multiple audiences; stakeholder (and staff) participatory processes. She is past vice president and now serves as board member of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society. I think she can continue to make contributions to the society via her rich experience.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Ms. Susan Cuddy is past vice president and now serves as board member of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society. She also wants to continue to serve the community in the future. Due to her rich experience, I believe she will advance the science of environmental modelling and software in this research direction.

Pouyan Nejadhashemi

Information about the nominated candidate:

Dr. Nejadhashemi is a Michigan State University Foundation Professorship in both the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering and the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in Bioenvironmental and Water Resources Engineering. At Michigan State University, he directs a multidisciplinary team pioneering an ecosystem-centric approach to resolving water resource challenges. He also directs the Decision Support and Informatics Unit alongside the Center for Intelligent Water Resources Engineering. Dr. Nejadhashemi has secured over $41 million in grants as a principal or co-principal investigator. His expertise is globally recognized, with numerous international agencies seeking his team’s advice on water management and climate change. An author of 140+ peer-reviewed articles, he has held board positions in several top journals and delivered over 190 presentations at conferences worldwide.

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 aim to serve on the iEMSs board to advance the use of smart and intelligent systems in managing water resources and agricultural sustainability. My goal is to lead efforts that integrate cutting-edge technology into environmental management, enhancing decision-making and resilience against climate change. By fostering research and collaboration, I hope to contribute significantly to iEMSs’s mission, focusing on technological innovation for a sustainable future.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

I am chairing the 12th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, scheduled for June 23–27, 2024, in East Lansing. Additionally, I have served on the board of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society for the past six years.

Chris Knightes

Information about the nominated candidate:

I have been a research environmental engineer at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, since Sept 2002, after completing my PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. My research has focused on mechanistic modeling of contaminant fate and transport in surface waters and watersheds, with emphasis on investigating contaminant processes and incorporating them into EPA models. I have worked on applying, evaluating, and updating EPA’s Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP), particularly with toxicant contaminants, and co-instructing WASP training courses. I was a co-author for EPA’s Hydraulic Fracturing Impacts Assessment and lead modeler for simulating fate and transport of metals released from the Gold King Mine. For each of these, we received a US EPA Gold Medal.

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 running for an iEMSs board position is to continue being involved with the international society and keeping connected with the advances and developments in environmental modeling and software. The US EPA is actively involved in model and software development to address environmental challenges. By being in the board I hope to improve the connections and communication regarding modeling being done by environmental managers (at the local, state, region, and national level) and the academic community and private sector. I would like to increase attendance at our conferences to widen the breath of the attendees across these different sectors using and applying environmental modeling and software.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

I have been serving on the outreach committee for the past 4 years, as a part of that I have worked with the board and the president in improving our communications across the society. As a part of that, I have been pulling together newsletters, posting them on the society website as well as sending emails to the society. I hope to continue with this and improve how we can keep our members informed. Since our society meets every two years, it is important that we keep communication channels open, particularly to keep our members informed about happenings in the society as well as information about the conferences (particularly increasing communication on call for sessions, abstracts, and workshops and dates for registration).

Andrea Rizzoli

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 publicationson these subjects. In 2001 he has been awarded the ´Early Career ResearchExcellence´ 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.

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:

Andrea Rizzoli is one of the founding members of iEMSs, former president and overall brings a wealth of experience and experience which would be vital to retain in a role as iEMSs Board member.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

See biography, various contributions to iEMSs, MSSANZ, EnviroInfo, ISESS and advancing environmental modelling and software science in general.

Stefan Reis

Information about the nominated candidate:

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 International Society for Environmental Modelling & Software Systems (iEMSs). I am an editor of Environmental Modelling & Software and a member of the editorial board of the journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL). I am currently president of iEMSs and was awarded a fellowship of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2019.

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 the outgoing president of iEMSs, I would like to offer my experience and support to the new office and president to be elected throughout the coming two years. I would offer contributions to the organisation of iEMSs conferences and specifically supporting activities to increase diversity and promote the inclusion of early career scientists.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

iEMSs President and Vice-President, iEMSs Board Member, Session Organiser, OMF-EC Member…

Karina Gibert

Information about the nominated candidate:

PhD. Karina Gibert [♀] google H-index: 32 Twitter @karinagibertk, karina.gibert@upc.edu, https://www.eio.upc.edu/en/homepages/karina, Full Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech. Member of iEMSs from 2000 and member of the board of iEMss in (Jul 2016-Jul 2022). Founder and chair of DMTES workshops series at iEMSs from 2002. Fellow iEMSs 2007. Director and cofounder of the research center Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDEAI). Dean of the Official Professional College of Informatics Engineering of Catalonia (COEINF). Expert and co-writer of the Catalan Strategy for AI, Catalonia.ai. Member of the Committee for the Ethics of Data from Catalan Government, from 2021. Member of the Board of Directors of the Program in Health and AI of Catalan Government (2023-). Advisory Board of EIT-Artificial Intelligence (2023-).

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 serving the society from the early 2000. I am willing to continue working for iEMSs.
My main directions are to promote the data mining and artificial intelligent fields in environmental sciences and to work for the participation of Women in the environmental modelling and software fields. I’ll be glad to continue helping to the growth of iEMSs.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

I was creating back in 2002 the first workshop and special session on Data Mining Techniques for Environmental Scientists that I continue chairing uninterruptedly from more than 20 years ago.

I keep a community of scientists that allways come to iEMSs arround the DMTES and sustain relevant discussions inside the sessions that later have impact in the advancement of their researches and enable sinergies and collaborations in the meeting points between environmental sciences and data mining, artificial intelligence and related fields.

I have been leading some special issues in the journal and serve as editor egarding data mining and environmental modelling softwares. I have been helping in the Awards commission. I would be glad to contribute with the working group in Women iEMSs.

Saman Razavi

Information about the nominated candidate:

Dr Razavi has made outstanding contributions principally to the Science of Hydrology but also to education and service in our scientific community. His research has significantly contributed to tackling “uncertainty” as a major challenge in the modern hydrological sciences. In particular his place-based research has a systems view of connected and contested problems in basins where uncertainty is rife and must be characterized and managed.

This affords him a very practical perspective on the underpinning hydrologic representations and modeling.

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:

Saman has experience in leading community initiatives in the environmental sciences. One example is as former Chair of the AGU Subcommittee on Uncertainty where he built a community of scientists to assess challenges around uncertainty in the water resources domain.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Saman has attended iEMSs meetings, led sessions, and has been a tireless Associate Editor of EMS, the sister journal of our Society. He is keen to build up attendance levels at future iEMSs meetings.

Val Snow

Information about the nominated candidate:

Dr Val Snow is a soil physicist and systems modeller. She works at the intersection of water quality and agriculture, with a particular emphasis on modelling to support policy and regulation. Her current position, ~20 years, is as an agroecosystem modeller at AgResearch in New Zealand where she is a Principal Scientist. Previous positions have been at CSIRO in Australia and Michigan State University in the USA. She has over 90 indexed publications and has been a key team member for the development and implementation of both regional and national water quality policy initiatives. She was the recipient of a Biennial Medal from iEMSs in 2018.

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:

Val’s experience and record on the Board of iEMSs, and also on the Management Committee of MSSANZ, will provide a strong basis for this position. An example is her professional renewal of the Awards Committee processes for MSSANZ, largely now followed by iEMSs.

Stefan Reis, as current President, has made substantial improvements in the processes that iEMSs uses to run the Society and the Congresses. She thoroughly approves of these and, if elected, would seek to continue that improvement.

Val has substantial experience in leading large and complex projects with challenging deadlines incorporating members across multiple time zones and who contribute expertise across many different domains. Her leadership style is inclusive, collaborative and consultative.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Val has been an regular attendee of iEMSs since 2014. She has served by co-organising sessions for the last five Congresses and has additionally served as a Steam co-convener for iEMSs 2024.

Val has served on the Editorial Board of Environmental Modelling and Software since 2015 and as Editor-in-Chief of Agricultural Systems since 2017. She currently serves on the iEMSs Awards Committee.

Takuya Iwanaga

Information about the nominated candidate:

I am an integrated modeller and research software developer specialising in cross-and-multi disciplinary work to craft systems for holistic and robust integrated decision support under uncertainty. I was awarded the the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society Early Career Researcher award in 2022 for my work on advancing holistic socio-environmental modelling. I am also an associate editor for Environmental Modelling and Software, co-Chair of the Open Modeling Foundation’s Early Career Scholars Working Group, and current Secretary for 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:

As current Secretary I have been involved in the trial migration to the Open Journal System (OJS) for the iEMSs Conference, and aid in the administration of the Society website.

Apart from these duties, I am interested in remaining an active participant in the iEMSs committees such as the ECR committee (of which I am a current member) and potentially joining the Outreach committee as well.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

To date, I have been involved in organizing sessions (most recently A4 – Tools and software for participatory modeling and decision support). As noted above, I am also supporting the iEMSs conference and trial of the OJS platform.

I have (in the past year) changed professional contexts from a terrestrial context to marine (water resources management to reef restoration and adaptation). I have been developing methods and approaches and accompanying tools to aid in holistic decision making under uncertainty in the reef context. Application of these methods and uncertainty considerations are in their relative infancy in this area.

Min Chen

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), Director of subcenter of International Research center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, Nanjing Normal University, 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, https://geomodeling.njnu.edu.cn/) team. The OpenGMS platform allows earth system modeling knowledge and earth system-related models to be widely shared using geographic information technologies, allowing different researchers and even the general public to more easily access and use related knowledge and models in cyberspace to explore the Earth system and understand our planet using the simulation and visualization tools provided. During recent years, Prof. Chen has published 180+ journal papers (among these 26 papers with their IF>10).

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 is Fellow of Association of American Geographers, and a Fellow of Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). He is also the PI of National Young Talents Program China (Funded as the key level), PI of NSF for Distinguished Young Scholars of China, PI of NSF for Excellent Young Scholars of China, Distinguished professor of Jiangsu province, group leader of Innovative and entrepreneurial talent group of Jiangsu Province, the Innovative personality of Jiangsu province. I think he can make great contributions to the society especially on the aspects of open geographic modeling.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Prof. Chen now serves as Vice-President of iEMSs, and also a Fellow of iEMSs. He is a co-editor in Chief of Environmental Modelling & Software (an official journal of International Environmental Modelling and Software Society (iEMSs)). He is the main proposer of iEMSs regional conference, and the hoster of the first iEMSs regional conference. I strongly believe that he will continue to lead the community and advance the science of environmental modelling and software.

Peter Khaiter

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 and PhD in Mathematical Modelling.

His research interests are closely related to the environmental modelling and software domain in a unique diversity of areas such as process- and data-driven modeling, 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 studies are presented in about 150 publications including books, chapters, journal articles and conference proceedings.

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 prosperity of 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, as Chair of the Constitution Committee, I am planning to continuously working 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, actively contributing to the iEMSs operations through serving in the Office as a Vice-President or as a Board member and particularly chairing the Constitution Committee and Elections Committee of the Society and successfully running in the latter capacity the elections process in the four most recent rounds. During my previous term, the Constitution Committee initiated the revisions of the iEMSs By-Laws. I dedicate both energy and expertise to promoting the aims of the Society by acting as 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.

Marina Erechtchoukova

Information about the nominated candidate:

I am an Associate Professor, School of Information Technology, York University, Canada.

My primary research interests are in application of 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 ones as well as 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 110 titles of peer reviewed works in addition to two patents and scientific reports.

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 providing our support and participating in iEMSs initiatives, distributing information on our major undertakings inviting new members. iEMSs congresses provide excellent opportunity for societal growth. 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 suggest developing a standardized workflow for publishing conference proceedings including full-length papers within a few months after an iEMSs congress. I will be happy to make my contribution to the growth and prosperity of our society.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

I joined iEMSs in 2008 just before the General Meeting in Barcelona. Since then, I have organized conference sessions and presented my papers in all subsequent iEMSs congresses. I led streams in some of the Congresses and participated in workshops. 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 contributed to on-line discussions and decision making. I serves as iEMSs secretary from 2014 to 2020 and became an iEMSs Vice-President. I joined EMS Editorial Board as a manuscript editor. In 2015, I received the Outstanding Reviewer Award from the EMS journal in 2014 and 2017. In 2020 I was awarded the title of Fellow of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society.

Sondoss Elsawah

Information about the nominated candidate:

Sondoss Elsawah has a background in operations research and is a world leader in socio-environmental systems research. She obtained her PhD from University of New South Wales, and became a Research Fellow at the ANU. After four years there she obtained a position at UNSW, Canberra where she is now Associate Professor.

She is at the forefront of the meta-discipline of Integrated Assessment, which in water resources aims to promote sustainability outcomes by integrating knowledge, methods, practitioners and stakeholders from different disciplines and perspectives, and making it available for societal learning and decision-making processes. Her contributions in this field have resulted in both methodological and actionable outcomes with high impact. Thus, she has been the lead developer of several crucially important and novel guiding frameworks for model-based assessment of water resource issues and applied her accrued knowledge to water problems of concern .

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:

Sondoss has a great deal of experience in organisational matters and is currently Vice-President of MSSANZ. She has proven to be strategic in her role there and her links with MSSANZ should be advantageous for iEMSs. She is highly collaborative.

She would be open to lead initiatives in any area deemed important for the Society such as helping with outreach, student and early career matters.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Sondoss has contributed to iEMSs conferences and sessions over the years. She is an Editor of EMS and Editor-in-Chief of SESMO, our two society journals. She has contributed high impact papers to both journals, in addition to servicing the journals at a high level.

Dali Wang

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.

Jiping Jiang

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.

Nagesh Kolagani

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.

Ke Zhang

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:

Dr. Zhang is an expert on modeling and software and can provide professional suggestions for the development of iEMSs.
Dr. Zhang is an active intenational scholar who can promote our iEMSs worldwide.

The nominated candidate’s previous contributions to iEMSs society activities and advancing the science of environmental modelling and software:

Dr. Zhang is the former secretary of iEMSs and undertook many tasks for the promotion of iEMSs.
Dr. Zhang was also a board member and contribute to iEMSs for a long time.

Vidya Samadi

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.

Alexey Voinov

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.

Willem Vervoort

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.

Giorgio Mannina

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:

contributions to society activities during board meeting – sicne 2010
organization of sessions during biennal conferences
students evaluations for award during conferences
promotion of the society during international conferences and events

Georgii Alexandrov

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.

Nigel Quinn

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.

SPRING 2023 NEWSLETTER

Call for Session Proposals for iEMSs 2024

iEMSs Awards

SESMO Compendium on “Fundamentals of Modelling, Principles and Good Practice”