Biography

Fabián A. Bombardelli obtained a degree in Hydraulic Engineering at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina (a six-year program) and a Masters degree (Magister) in “Numerical Simulation and Control” at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. (He was the first candidate to be awarded this degree, after defending his Thesis in January of 1999.) Before arriving in the United States to complete his studies, Fabián was a research engineer working on hydraulic models at the Instituto Nacional del Agua (INA) in Ezeiza, Argentina from 1992 until August 1998. At INA, he developed a thesis on the numerical simulation of the hydrodynamics and pollutant transport in a large estuary (1993; equivalent to a Masters degree), and he was involved in the mathematical and numerical modeling of problems associated with waves in coastal areas and harbors, environmental impact of bridges over water courses, scour of river banks downstream of dams, time evolution of river beds, flow in porous media, and thermal discharges to rivers. Among those works, Fabián developed and implemented numerical models of flow and water quality of the Paraná, de la Plata, and Uruguay Rivers, which rank among the largest water courses in the world.
Fabián developed his Ph.D. research in the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), obtaining his degree in May of 2004 (his thesis defense was in September of 2003).

 Education

  • 2004 – Ph.D., Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • 1999 – M.S., Numerical Simulation and Control, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 1993 – Thesis of Scholarship, INA, Argentina
  • 1992 – Dipl. Engineer, Hydraulic Engineering, National University of La Plata, Argentina

Academic Appointments

  • Research Assistant, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, August 1998 to December 2003.
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), University of California, Davis (UC Davis), January 2004-present.
  • Invited Visiting Professor, University of Concepción, Concepción, Chile (September-October 2006).

Professional Activities

Professional Employment

  • Expert assisting the Argentinian Government in the Matanza-Riachuelo Project (2008 and 2010). This project is financed by the World Bank. I performed the technical assistance for the Sanitary Works and Water (AySA) of Argentina.
  • Bureau of Public Roads of Buenos Aires Province (1989-1991) as an undergraduate student, in use of a scholarship (awarded after a public contest). I was dedicated to the development and application of techniques for the design of bridges crossing water courses (from the hydraulic point of view).
  • National Institute for Water (1992-1998; from 1992 to 1993, in use of a scholarship). As a Research engineer in the Computational Hydraulics Department of the Laboratory of Applied Hydraulics, I participated in the numerical simulation of the largest rivers and water bodies in Argentina, including the Paraná, Uruguay and de la Plata Rivers. I addressed problems of wave propagation in coastal areas and harbors, pollutant transport and hydrodynamics in 1D and 2D, flow in porous media, erosion downstream of dams, wind-induced flows, and heat transport in rivers. I also participated in environmental impact assessments. I focused on the development and use of numerical techniques for the simulation of problems related to the above topics, employing the methods of finite differences, finite volumes, and finite elements. I was promoted to higher ranks within the institution in 1993 and 1995, via two public contests in which I was awarded the position.
  • Member (1994-1995), Vice-President (1996) and, then, Coordinator (1997) of the Institute for Environmental Engineering, Association of Engineers of Buenos Aires Province.
  • Consultant in hydraulics (sewage systems, 1993), flooding in urban areas (1994), and coastal engineering (1997), employing numerical and theoretical techniques.
  • Consultant in structural engineering (1993 and 1997), participating in an engineering private company. I participated in the design, by computational means, of a notable metal structure for the waterfront of the city of Buenos Aires, which was built in 1997.

Editorship and Scientific Committees

  • Invited Member of the Editorial Board of the Open Journal of Civil Engineering (2007-present). Please see: http://www.bentham.org/open/tociej/EBM.htm.
  • Co-editor of the Newsletter of the Hydraulic Structures Section of IAHR (2007-present).
  • Guest Editor of Special Issue of the journal Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Springer, titled: “Recent advances on multi-phase flows of environmental importance.” (2007-2009). The Special Issue was published in April 2009.
  • “Acting” Associate Editor of Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Springer. The Editor-in-Chief of the journal requested me to manage some more papers in addition to those of the Special Issue (2009-present).
  • Member of the Scientific Committee of the following conferences:
  • 1. 7th Int. Conf. on Lake Management and Conservation, San Martín de los Andes, Argentina, 1997 (invited). Rapporteur during the conference.
  • 2. ENIEF 2004, XIV Congress on Numerical Methods and their Applications, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, November (invited).
  • 3. River Flow 2008, Cezme, Izmir, Turkey, September (invited).
  • 4. Second International Junior Researcher and Engineer Workshop, International Association for Hydraulic Engineering and Research, IAHR, Pisa, Italy, July-August 2008 (invited).
  • 5. Second International Symposium on Shallow Flows, Hong Kong, December 2008 (http://www.ce.ust.hk/issf/). (Invited.)
  • 6. RCEM 2009, River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics, Santa Fe, Argentina, September (http://www.unl.edu.ar/rcem2009/s_committee.php).
  • 7. Third International Junior Researcher and Engineer Workshop, IAHR, Edinburgh, May 2010 (http://www.iahreurope.info/edinburgh2010/IJREWHS/organisation.asp). (Invited.)
  • 8. River Flow 2010, Braunschweig, Germany, to be held in September (http://134.169.92.18/riverflow/index.php?main=organization&submain=scicom).
  • 9. RCEM 2011, River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics, Beijing, China, to be held in September (http://sklhse.tsinghua.edu.cn/rcem2011/Organising-Committee.html). (Invited.)

Professional Affiliations

  • Association of Engineers of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, 1991-2003.
  • Argentine Association for Computational Mechanics (AMCA), since 1995.
  • Phi Kappa Phi, USA, 2000-2005.
  • The Planetary Society, USA, 2000-2004.
  • IAHR student chapter, 2001-2003; Individual Member since 2007.
  • International Water Resources Association (IWRA), student chapter, 2001-2003.
  • ASCE student chapter, 2003. Associate Member since 2006.
  • American Physical Society (APS), since 2005.

Awards

  • Glenn and Helen Stout Water Resources Research Award for “academic achievement and outstanding research in hydrosystems,” 2001, Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
  • First Prize (Best Paper) in the Student Technical Paper Competition for the 2003 World Water & Environmental Resources Congress, Philadelphia, PA, Environmental and Water Resources Institute/American Society of Civil Engineers, EWRI/ASCE (June). Paper titled: “Characterization of coherent structures from parallel, LES computations of wandering effects in bubble plumes.”
  • Finalist Award in the 11th Student Technical Paper Competition, 2003 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference, Cleveland, OH, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASME International (July). Paper titled: “Parallel computations of the dynamic behavior of bubble plumes.”
  • Finalist in the international competition for the Lorenz Straub Award, for the most meritorious thesis of hydraulic engineering or related fields of year 2004. I was nominated for the award by the CEE Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Although I did not win the award, the finalist theses were judged to be of award caliber (please see award website).
  • Honor Society Phi Kappa Phi (2000).
  • Voted Member of the Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, June 2004.
  • Listed in Marquis Who’s Who in America, 2004/2005; also in subsequent editions.
  • Listed in Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, 2005-2006 issue, page 185; listed also in subsequent editions.
  • Listed in Marquis Who’s Who in the World, 2005, 2008.
  • Invited contribution to the Mini-symposium on “Fluvial Hydraulics and River Morphodynamics,” 7th International Conference on Hydro-Science and Engineering, Philadelphia, September 2006.
  • Invited and voted Member of the Hydraulic Structures Section, IAHR (2007 and 2009).
  • Invited Session Chairperson-Moderator in diverse conferences worldwide: 1) ENIEF 2004, XIV Congress on Numerical Methods and their Applications, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, November; 2) XXXI IAHR Congress, Seoul, South Korea, September 2005; 3) 7th International Conference on Advances in Hydro-Science and Engineering, Philadelphia, September 2006; 4) Fifth Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics, Tempe, Arizona, December 2007; 5) River Flow 2008, Cezme, Izmir, Turkey, September; 6) 6th Biennial Bay-Delta Conference, Sacramento, California, to be held in September 2010.
  • Invited Session Coordinator in different conferences: 1) ENIEF 2004, XIV Congress on Numerical Methods and their Applications, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, November; 2) MECOM 2005, VIII Congress on Computational Mechanics, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November; 3) ENIEF 2006, XV Congress on Numerical Methods and their Applications, Santa Fe, Argentina, November; 4) 6th Biennial Bay-Delta Conference, Sacramento, California, to be held in September 2010.
  • Nominated as Member of the Executive Committee of the Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Group, University of California, Davis (currently under consideration).
  • Nominated as Member and Vice Chair of the task committee on Model validation and verification within the ASCE/EWRI Committee on Computational Hydraulics. I was invited by Dr. Richard Schmaltz (from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA) to join, and my nomination is currently being analyzed by the Committee on Computational Hydraulics of ASCE/EWRI (May 2010).

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