The City of Austin Watershed Protection (AWP) Department has long supported efforts in protecting and improving our streams. Watershed ordinances were first implemented in Austin in 1986 and a citizen sponsored ordinance protecting Barton Springs and its watersheds passed in 1998. To that end, since the early 1990’s AWP has employed scientists, engineers, planners, and environmental coordinators in its mission to protect lives and properties from flooding, erosion, and pollution. Specifically, AWP engages in freshwater science to monitor the state of its water bodies and to evaluate interventions (such as policies, programs, and projects) that mitigate the impacts of urban development.
I am one in a long line of applied mathematicians/statisticians that have supported this work. Through consultations on design of experiments and statistical analyses, I have collaborated with other environmental scientists to assess various interventions and to document our results. These assessments range from impacts of wastewater discharges on our creeks to analyses of benthic macroinvertebrate community metrics to estimates of sediment quality.
As I grew within the department, I was lucky enough to become a section manager supervising a group of environmental modelers and programmers. As part of this group, we launched a project to simulate every watershed in Austin with the goal of quantifying hydrology, estimating sediment and pollution transport, and predicting bioassessments every kilometer along the creeks. Under my guidance we’ve expanded our skill set to incorporate modern statistical algorithms, such as Functional Data Analysis and Deep Learning methods, to find patterns in relationships between hydrology and riparian ecology. These efforts cumulated in a published paper in Freshwater Science in December 2025. All of this work was done not as an academic exercise, rather to support decision making on what areas need prioritization and what intervention is needed.
I would be honored to speak about either my experiences and career growth in AWP or the various freshwater science opportunities available in AWP and its long-storied past in providing improved water quality to our freshwater streams.