ORNL research leader to discuss water resilience in Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series talk

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Susan Hubbard, a national leader in watershed research, will speak at Purdue on April 29.

Hubbard, deputy for science and technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), will give a talk titled “A Watershed Moment to Propel 21st Century Water Resilience ” from 2-3 p.m. at Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. A brief reception will follow the lecture.

At ORNL, Hubbard spearheads one of the nation’s most expansive multidisciplinary research portfolios. The water-resilience research that Hubbard oversees is pursuing emerging technologies like AI and exascale computing to replace current, suboptimal technologies that predict watershed behaviors and responses to environmental and weather-related disturbances.

Her talk will address how growing populations and resource-intensive lifestyles are increasing demands for clean water, food and energy, while simultaneously, climate change, land-use shifts and extreme events like droughts, floods and wildfires, are affecting water quality and availability.

Hubbard also will discuss technologies being developed at ORNL that will provide timely and useful information to resource managers, planners and emergency responders. She  will explain how these approaches are being tailored to regions across the United States.

Hubbard has over 25 years of experience at national laboratories, including a previous post at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She helped to develop a new field of research that uses geophysical approaches to remotely quantify how hydrological, geochemical and biological processes interact and influence water availability, water quality and carbon cycling in terrestrial systems.

Hubbard’s talk marks the return of the Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series, a mechanism by which the Institutes and Centers at Discovery Park District brings science and technology thought leaders to campus for the Purdue community. This lecture also is sponsored by the Purdue Institute for a Sustainable Future and the College of Science.

Writer/Media contact: Amy Raley, araley@purdue.edu

Source: Mary Ann Bobillo, mbobillo@purdue.edu