international ground water modeling center

TECHNICAL ADVISORY STAFF

Student Advisory Staff:

Sophia Seo is Assistant Director of International Ground Water Modeling Center and also working toward a Ph.D. degree at CSM in Geological Engineering. She holds M.E. in Earth Science Education from Ewha Womans University in Korea. She has worked for 5 years with modeling experience at IGWMC and her most recent experience includes computer modeling in support of code verification and validation. Her research also includes the Interfacial phenomena associated with DNAPL mixtures.

Faculty Advisors:

Dr. Eileen Poeter is the Principal Advisor, guiding the students, monitoring the documentation of their problem solutions, deciding how to surmount the inevitable obstacles, and moving the problem on to higher level technical advisors when appropriate. She holds PhD and MS degrees in engineering from the Washington State University, and a B.S. in geology from Lehigh University. Dr. Poeter instructs the training class and serves as the first contact for higher level advising. Dr. Poeter has 25 years of experience in computer simulation and has developed a broad knowledge base for guidance of ground-water modelers through teaching, advising graduate student projects, conducting research projects, and consulting.

Dr. John McCray is the advisor for unsaturated-flow and multiphase-flow modeling. He holds a PhD degree in hydrology from the University of Arizona, a M.S. in environmental engineering from Clemson, and a B.S. in engineering from West Virginia University. Dr. McCray teaches a semester course in multiphase-flow modeling at CSM and instructs a short course on this topic for IGWMC. He has considerable experience in computer simulation of organic contaminant transport and NAPL remediation and has published several related papers in hydrologic research journals. He currently administers funded research projects with primary emphasis on modeling of water flow and contaminant transport in the vadose zone at the laboratory and watershed scales.

Dr. Geoff Thyne is the primary advisor for geochemistry issues. He holds a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Wyoming, an M. S. in Oceanography from Texas A & M University, and a B. A. in Chemistry and Zoology from the University of South Florida. Dr. Thyne is a research professor specializing in geochemistry and hydrogeology, with expertise in geochemical modeling (PHREEQC, Geochemist Workbench®, EQ3/6, and MINTEQ). He teaches modeling and geochemical analysis classes at CSM. Dr. Thyne worked for seven years in Reservoir Engineering and Geochemistry at ARCO Oil and Gas Co. before returning to academia and consulting in 1986. His projects include water quality issues associated with solid waste management (landfills), acid mine drainage, ore mineral leaching, pit lake chemistry and well-head protection, and he is an EPA certified peer reviewer. Dr Thyne is experienced in collection, analysis and interpretation of hydrogeologic and hydrochemical data, reactive-transport modeling, and analytical equipment and techniques such as AAS, GC, MS, MPLC, UV-VIS, MPLC, specific ion and titrimetric analyses, XRD, and light stable isotopic measurement.