Tissa H. Illangasekare, Ph.D., D.Eng., P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE

Tissa Illangasekare, Phd, PE

Current Academic Position

Professor Illangasekare presently holds the AMAX Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and is also the founding Director of the University/Industry/National Laboratory collaborative Center for the Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (http://cesep.mines.edu). He is also co-owner/principal of Integrated Hydro Systems, LLC.

Positions Held

Prior to joining CSM, he was at Colorado State University (CSU), Louisiana State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He served on the research faculty at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in 1974. He is an affiliated faculty in the Dept. of Applied Mathematics at CU-Boulder. He has close to 40 years of research and academic experience.

Education

PhD., Civil Engineering (Groundwater Hydrology and Modeling), Colorado State University, 1978
M.S. Eng, Hydrology and Water Resources Development, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), 1974
BSc (honors), Civil Engineering, University of Ceylon, Sri Lanka, 1971

Managing Editorial Experience

Past managing editor for Hydrology for Earth Science Review,
Past co-editor of Vadose Zone Journal and from 2009-2013, published by Soil Science Society of America
Past Editor of Water Resources Research, the most prestigious journal in hydrologic sciences and water resources, published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Associate Editorial Experience

Research Interests

His research interests are in:

numerical modeling of saturated and unsaturated flow in porous media,
surface-subsurface interaction,
arid-zone hydrology,
integrated modeling of hydrologic systems,
flow in snow and arctic hydrology,
subsurface chemical transport and multiphase flow,
environmental impacts of energy development,
buried threat detection,
sensor technologies for environmental monitoring,
CO2 sequestration,
land-atmospheric interaction modeling, and
Methane loading to atmosphere.

He has served as principal investigator on projects sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF), Army Research Office, USEPA, US.Air Force, US.DOE, US.DOD and other industrial sponsors. He has published many book chapters and nearly 280 technical articles in journals and proceedings.

Boards

Member, National Academy of Science of Sri Lanka, Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
Member, National Academy/ National Research Council Committee on the Future Options for Management in the Nation’s Subsurface Remediation Effort,
Member, National Academy/ National Research Council Committee on Opportunities And Challenges For International Science at the U.S. Geological Survey
NAS/National Research Council’s Committee on the Management of Certain Radioactive Waste Streams Stored in Tanks at Three Department of Energy Sites. 2005-2006.
AGU Hydrology Section Fall Organizing Committee (2008)
AGU Affiliation and Engagement Task Force.
International Science Advisor Board, Hydrologic Observatory (HOBE), Denmark, 2007-date.
Asian Institute of Technology Institutional Level External Advisory Board.

Honors

He is a Fellow of:

American Geophysical Union (AGU),
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE),
American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS),
Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and
The National Academy of Science of Sri Lanka.

He is also a Recipient of:

European Geosciences Society’s 2012 Henry Darcy Medal given in recognition of outstanding scientific contributions in water resources research and water resources engineering and management.
2015 recipient of the AGU’s Langbein Lecture Award (a Bowie lecture) given in recognition of lifetime contributions to the science of hydrology.
Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Groundwater Prize (2016) for describing subsurface transport in groundwater systems for the reliable prediction of the long‐term fate of pollutants.

Selected Publications

Conjunctive Use of Surface-Surface Flow

Flow in Fractured Rocks and Dam Safety

Flow on Subfreezing Snow and Glacier Runoff Modeling

Unsaturated Flow Characterization and Modeling

Solute Transport

Multiphase Flow Physics and Modeling

Flood Hydrology

Collides and Nano Particles

Subsurface Remediation

Tsunami and Coastal Aquifer Contamination

Wireless Sensor Networks for Environmental Monitoring