Thank you Soroptimist International of Truckee Donnor for sponsoring this Lunch with a Scientist!

Jonathan has been at Balance Hydrologics since 1995. He manages projects quantifying flow hydraulics, riparian roughness, channel morphology, sediment-transport and hydrologic effects of proposed land use changes. Supervises construction of creek and river restoration projects. Responsible for many streamflow, constituent-transport, and recharge simulations. Evaluates historic flow records and identifies hydrologic patterns. Models stream network discharges and temporal requirements for targeted biological species to establish water availability for consumptive uses. Participates in analyses of drainage, water budgets, and likely effects of proposed land- or water-use changes on sensitive wetlands. Performs field investigations and modeling to assess flood levels in both natural streams and vegetated, urban, flood-control channels.

Erika began working at Balance in April of this year. She is a fluvial geomorphologist who uses a combination of field measurements, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, and GIS to understand rivers and how they interact with the Earth’s surface. She received her undergraduate degree in Geology from Arizona State University and recently graduated with her Master’s in Geology from the University of Nevada Reno. Her graduate research looked at how waterfalls affect erosion processes and involved climbing waterfalls and diving to the bottom of plunge pools with a snorkel (and also some less glamorous coding). Erika is originally from North Carolina, likes to train dogs in her free time, and is a first-generation college student!