Research team
During the course of this project Guglielmo "Gu" Stecca was a postodctoral researcher at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Trento (Italy), where he was employed under a Marie Curie Outgoing Fellowship for Career Development of the European Commission awarded in 2013. The goal of this project is to develop numerical models able to forecast the morphological evolution of braided rivers impacted by dams. For this research, he has been living and working for two years in New Zealand, where he was hosted by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Christchurch, and then for one year in Italy, working at the University of Trento.
Gu is passionate about connecting the ideal world of mathematics and the real world, and observing how mathematics helps disclose of the processes that underpin river morphology and its evolution. Amongst the many different kinds of river environments, he is particularly fascinated by those that are morphologically dynamic and minimally impacted by humans.
Gu holds a Ph.D. and a M.Sc. (Hons) in Environmental Engineering from the University of Trento. Before this project, he has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands). At present, he is back to New Zealand where he works as a river modeller at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Christchurch.
Prof. Guido Zolezzi is the science advisor for the University of Trento, Italy, where he presently serves as Associate Professor in Open Channel Hydraulics, and leads the Research Group in Morphodynamics and Environmental Hydraulics (GIAMT). His research interests range from river morphodynamics and sediment transport, to ecohydraulics to water supply and management in developing countries. Guido has a MSc Hons and a PhD from the University of Genova (Italy).
Dr. D. Murray Hicks is the advisor for NIWA, Christchurch, New Zealand, where he is the science leader of the Sediment Processes Group. Murray specialises in sediment transport and related geomorphic processes in rivers and on coasts. He has a BSc Hons in geology, a BE Hons in civil engineering and a PhD focussing on coastal processes from the University of California. His research interests include river sediment loads and delivery to the coast, organic carbon yields of rivers, braided river processes, gravel coasts, morphodynamic modelling of rivers and shorelines, and using airborne LiDAR and other remote-sensing technologies for measuring river and coastal morphologic change.
