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ASU hydrologist named Leopold Leadership Fellow


Enrique Vivoni
January 13, 2015

For his scholarship in the area of shared water resources, ASU hydrologist Enrique Vivoni has been awarded a 2015 Leopold Leadership Fellowship.

Vivoni, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, is one of 20 recipients selected for the prestigious North American fellowship program that focuses on communicating scientific research to a wide audience. 

“I am honored to be chosen as a Leopold Fellow and I look forward to serving as a focal point for water resources issues in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico,” Vivoni said.

Water in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico is a contentious issue that traverses disciplinary boundaries. Vivoni’s research activities focus on the intersection of hydrology and its allied disciplines (ecology, meteorology and geomorphology) for improving our understanding of water resources in this region.

A hallmark of Vivoni's research achievements has been the collaborative studies on the shared water resources between the United States and Mexico.

“The leadership skills developed through the Leopold Leadership program will be useful for addressing societal needs related to water resources sustainability," Vivoni said.

Vivoni is internationally recognized in the fields of distributed hydrologic modeling, ecohydrology of semi-arid regions, North American monsoon studies, and integration of engineering tools for advancing hydrologic science.

The Leopold Leadership Program, based at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, is a competitive fellowship for outstanding academic environmental scientists who are actively engaged in outreach to decision-makers and the public about their work. Each year, the program selects up to 20 mid-career academic environmental scientists as fellows.

The fellows were chosen for their outstanding scientific qualifications, demonstrated leadership ability and strong interest in sharing their knowledge beyond traditional academic audiences. The fellows will receive two weeks of intensive communication and leadership training in how to deliver information about their research to journalists, policymakers, business leaders and the public.

The Leopold Leadership Program was founded in 1998 to fill a critical gap in environmental decision-making: getting the best scientific knowledge into the hands of government, nonprofit and business leaders and the public to further the development of sustainable policies and practices.

A list of the 2015 fellows and more information about the program is available at leopoldleadership.stanford.edu.