Instructors

Dr. Matt Kondolf is a Professor of Environmental Planning and Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on fluvial geomorphology focuses on environmental river management, influences of land use on rivers, riparian vegetation and channel form interactions, geomorphic influences on habitat for salmon and trout, alternative flood management strategies, and assessment of ecological restoration.

Dr. Hervé Piégay is Research Director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, Lyon, France). His research interests include contemporary channel changes due to afforestation and damming, bedload transport measurement and floodplain sedimentation, riparian vegetation, remote sensing of fluvial features and grain morphometry, dynamics of large wood, and river restoration and management. He has won numerous awards and published more than 110 articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited books.

Dr. Michal Tal is a fluvial geomorphologist. She is an assistant professor at Aix-Marseille University and her research is based at the CEREGE laboratory. Her current projects are focused on quantifying the relative magnitudes and time scales of natural and anthropogenic controls on channel evolution, sediment distributions, and transport capacities in the Rhône and Buech Rivers. The work is based on a combination of field monitoring, high resolution photogrammetry, historical flow and bathymetric records, and hydraulic and morphodynamic modeling.

Dr. Pete Downs is a chartered fluvial geomorphologist (CGeog (Geomorph)) with teaching, research and consultancy interests focused on the impacts of human activities on the dynamics of river environments and the role of geomorphology in promoting sustainable river management and restoration. He recently served as the Honorary Secretary of the British Society for Geomorphology, working to promote geomorphology research and the professional status of geomorphology in the UK.

Dr. Virginia Ruiz-Villanueva  is a scientific collaborator at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) of the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. Virginia´s research interests are related to fluvial geomorphology and flood dynamics in mountain basins. Her current research focuses on the form and function of rivers and their catchments and the linkages with the landscape, including physical-biotic interactions. An important aspect of her work is related to the instream wood dynamics. Her approach combines physically based-, GIS and numerical models, always supported by field observations, to analyse instream wood budgets and to include the transport of wood during floods in the flood hazard and risk analyses.

Dr. Michael Singer is a lecturer in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University (UK) and a researcher in the Earth Research Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is trained in hydrology and geomorphology and his research is increasingly focused on the regional environmental expression of climate and climate change. Singer has investigated various science and management problems in drainage basins ranging from ecohydrology, forest health, climate change, floods, dams, sediment transport, legacy of mining, and stochastic hydrology. He is also a certified Professional Hydrologist (American Institute of Hydrology).

Kristell Michel is a Remote Sensing/Geomatic Engineer with the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Lyon. She supports researchers and doctoral students on a wide variety of projects in fluvial geomorphology. Her activities range from training to the development of methodologies and the acquisition of data in the field. She is an expert in the application of both conventional (DGPS, echosounder, etc.) and advanced tools (LiDAR sensor, drone-mounted hyperspectral sensors, etc.), and has also developed new tools to meet the needs of researchers.

Dr. Phil Roni is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Principal Scientist with Cramer Fish Sciences in Seattle, Washington. His current research focuses on planning, prioritization, and evaluating various watershed restoration techniques. He has published numerous papers on restoration science, including the books “Stream and Watershed Restoration: A Guide to Restoring Riverine Processes and Habitat” (2013) and “Monitoring Stream and Watershed Restoration” (2005).

Fanny Arnaud is a Fluvial Geomorphology/Geomatics Engineer at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, Lyon, France). Her research interests are sediment transport processes, historical channel adjustments, river management and restoration in alpine gravel-bed rivers (Rhine, Ain, Rhône). The work is based on topo-bathymetry, RFID pebble tracking, grain size sampling as well as historical analysis and GIS procedures. She is also responsible for webmapping, metadata catalog, and database tools in the Human-Environment Observatory Rhône Valley (CNRS-INEE).

Dr. Jeff Haltiner PE has an extensive background in hydrology, river science, and wetland restoration. He has managed several hundred projects on watershed analysis, river channel and floodplain hydraulics, flood hazard assessment and ecosystem restoration on rivers and wetlands. He has authored a series of papers on urban stream restoration that address the unique constraints of urban and urbanizing settings. Much of his practice has focused on understanding natural river function to guide the design of flood management projects that concurrently provide ecological habitat, water quality improvement and public access.

Dr. John Stella is a riparian ecologist and Associate Professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF, Syracuse). His research group focuses on river restoration, riparian forest ecology, and plant ecohydrology. His research sites are located in semi-arid regions of the western U.S., Mediterranean Europe, and the Adirondack mountains of New York. Currently, he is investigating water stress indicators in riparian woodlands on the Santa Clara River in Southern California, the Rhône River in France, and on military bases in the U.S. Southwest.

Michael Moore has worked at the interface of ecological systems and engineering analysis. As both a design and construction lead, Michael has focused on the application of data and modeling tools to develop low-impact strategies and implementation approaches that facilitate the regeneration of physical, chemical, and biological processes throughout a watershed. In river systems, his work has often included design and installation of large woody debris, bio-engineered bank stabilization, and fish passage restoration strategies.

Robin Jenkinson brings a botanical and fisheries background to restoring streams in a collaborative manner at the watershed scale across multiple land uses and jurisdictions. She was the Watershed Science Director for a the Johnson Creek Watershed Council, a small non-profit working to restore Portland, Oregon’s only free-flowing salmon stream. She now consults from Salt Spring Island, BC. Her expertise lays in strategic approaches to grassroots stream restoration, with an emphasis on adaptive management and monitoring.