Murugesu Sivapalan

Dr. Murugesu Sivapalan is the Chester and Helen Siess Endowed Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. He is a world leader in catchment hydrology, internationally recognized for his foundational contributions to hydrological theory, particularly on scale issues in hydrologic modeling, for his leadership of global initiatives advancing prediction in ungauged basins, and for co-founding the field of socio-hydrology, which integrates human–water interactions into Earth system science.

Dr. Sivapalan has played a central role in shaping international hydrology research agendas. He was the founding chair of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Decade on Predictions in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative, has served on the editorial boards of numerous leading journals and was Executive Editor of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences for ten years. His academic career includes long-standing appointments at the University of Western Australia, and the University of Illinois, as well as visiting professorships at leading institutions in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Dr. Sivapalan is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and the Modeling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, and a Life Member of the International Water Academy. His honors include the AGU Robert E. Horton Medal, the EGU Alfred Wegener Medal, the International Hydrology Prize (IAHS), and the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water. He has also received the Australian Government’s Centenary Medal and an honorary doctorate from Delft University of Technology.

He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering (University of Ceylon), an M.Eng. in Water Resources Engineering (Asian Institute of Technology), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University.