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Hathaway Wins Prestigious NSF CAREER Award for Sustainable Urban Water Management

Jon HathawayJon Hathaway, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been selected to receive a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of this prestigious NSF program is to support the career development of select, outstanding faculty by facilitating the integration of the faculty member’s educational and research plans in the early stages of their careers. Hathaway’s CAREER proposal is entitled: “Toward Sustainable Urban Water Management through a Twofold Approach: Enhanced Landscape Modeling and Strategic Spatial Placement of Stormwater Control Measures”.

Through this 5-year project, Hathaway and his students will seek to develop strategies for more effective modeling and strategic placement of green infrastructure in urban watersheds. The educational component of this project includes outreach to K-12 students through the Knox County Adopt-a-Watershed program, introduction of green infrastructure concepts to freshmen, and a new graduate-level course on watershed-scale hydrologic modeling.

“The CAREER award identifies Professor Hathaway as one of the nation’s most promising young faculty members working in the water resources area,” says CEE department chair and Robert M. Condra Professor, Chris Cox. “We are all proud of his outstanding achievement and expect that this award will enable him to make important contributions to green infrastructure.”

If successful, the project will lead to more effective urban watershed restoration, where stakeholders can more confidently test proposed strategies prior to installation. Such improvements will allow maximized public and ecological benefit with available resources. “I am honored to receive the CAREER Award, and very proud of my students who have performed research that culminated in this proposal,” says Hathaway. “It’s exciting for others to see the value in our work. I think it validates that we are building something special here in the area of water.”