Three Hydrology Grad Students Receive Top Awards

Neupauer was selected for the prestigious fellowship from a field of several top science and engineering graduate students from around the nation on the basis of her potential for successful graduate study, as indicated by her outstanding academic record, recommendations from her professors, and statements of career goals and objectives.

"My research work for my doctoral dissertation involves developing mathematical models to help identify groundwater contamination sources," Neupauer explains.

Neupauer has maintained a cumulative grade-point-average (GPA) of 4.0 out of a maximum 4.0 at the state-supported research university since arriving at New Mexico Tech in 1995.

She earned her master's degree in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her bachelor's degree in civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

Prior to coming to New Mexico Tech, Neupauer was employed as a senior engineer with Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Some of the work she did there involved groundwater modeling to support remediation of tetrachloroethylene-contaminated groundwater, as well as developing data acquisition systems to control transportability tests for waste drums to be stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.

She currently serves as president of the New Mexico Tech Graduate Student Association.

Neupauer's research mentor and doctoral program advisor in New Mexico Tech's hydrology program is John L. Wilson, who also is the person who first recommended that she apply for the EPA's STAR Fellowship program.

Plummer was selected for the prestigious fellowship from a field of several top science and engineering graduate students from around the nation on the basis of his academic excellence, the quality of his proposed research, and the relevance of his research to NASA's role in the U.S. Global Change Research Program (Mission to Planet Earth).

"I really didn't expect that NASA would fund my research project," Plummer says, "so I was very pleased to be informed that I had received this fellowship.

"Now, I guess you could say I'm doing rocket science," he quips.

Plummer's research work for his doctoral dissertation currently involves simultaneous modeling of glacial and lacustrine systems in the eastern Sierra Nevadas in order to reconstruct details of climate change during the last deglaciation.

"There's a lot of interest in climate change in many areas of science," Plummer says. "By examining specific changes that occurred over the course of several thousand years and reproducing these changes with Earth system models, we can garner clues as to what causes climate change."

Last year, Plummer and his research mentor and academic advisor, Fred M. Phillips, who first recommended that Plummer apply for the NASA Graduate Student Fellowship, cowrote a research paper that was published in the prestigious journal Science. That paper described how they used chlorine-36 in fossil pack middens to measure cosmogenic nuclide production variations in the atmosphere.

The Horton Research Grant, named in honor of Robert Elmer Horton (considered by many to be the father of modern hydrology), was established to provide financial support to Ph.D. candidates involved with hydrology or water resources research projects.

Sigda was selected for the prestigious award from a field of several top science and engineering doctoral candidates from around the world on the basis of his academic and research work.

Sigda's current research for his doctoral dissertation stems from previous work done for his master's thesis on the permeability of small faults in the poorly consolidated sands of the Rio Grande rift.

"I'm now looking at the role that small faults play in moving water from the ground surface through the thick unsaturated sediments down to the water table," he explains.

"This research could have many practical applications," Sigda adds. "For instance, here in the Rio Grande valley, we have many small faults, and if those faults do indeed move water faster through the unsaturated zone than their surrounding sediments, then there might be more recharge occurring to aquifers than was previously thought. . . . And, likewise, it's possible that contaminants might also be moving into those same aquifers at a faster rate than what was once thought."

Sigda's field research on the relationship between small faults and groundwater aquifers is primarily focused at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, south of Socorro.

He earned his bachelor's degree in engineering from Harvard College.

Prior to coming to New Mexico Tech, Sigda spent six years doing water supply and sanitation development work in East Africa with UNICEF and the Peace Corps.

He currently is a member of the AGU and the Geological Society of America.

"The opportunities for collaborative research spanning several disciplines--particularly, hydrology and geology--are fabulous here at New Mexico Tech," Sigda says. "The quality of the professors is excellent. . . . Furthermore, the Rio Grande rift serves as a wonderful natural laboratory."

Sigda and his wife, Dr. Rebecca Rogers, and their two children, Zachariah, age seven, and Hannah, age three, reside in Albuquerque.