Research Interests and highlights

I am interested in studying the impact of land use and water management practices on river ecosystems and in understanding the different responses of streams and rivers to natural and anthropogenic elements. During my graduate school period I looked at whole-stream metabolism (WSM) used as an indicator of river health. This approach allowed me to identify interesting temporal and spatial distributions of WSM estimates in response to natural and anthropogenic drivers (see for example, Villamizar et al., 2013). Related to this, I worked with Dr. Thomas C. Harmon and Dr. Henry Pai on using high resolution synoptic field studies to identify interactions between groundwater and surface water and the implications in terms of contributions of non-point source pollution from agroindustrial activities to the river (see Pai et al., 2015).

At Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia, I worked with Dr. Sergio Pineda (faculty member at UPB) and wonderful students in the analysis of water yield under historical and future climate change scenarios within a strategic watershed (Tona) which provides water supply to the metropolitan area of Bucaramanga. This study was quite exiting as it allowed us to interact with the different institutional stakeholders of the watershed and provide recommendations and motivation for more work to be developed in the watershed (see Villamizar et al., 2019).  

More recently, I had the opportunity to work in mediterranean mountain forested streams of the US west coast (Oregon) through a postdoctoral position at Oregon State University. I was lucky to work with Dr. Catalina Segura and Dr. Dana R. Warren in developing alternate strategies to assess stream ecosystem productivity in these highly complex ecosystems in response to seasonal dynamics and flow events. We are currently completing a manuscript that we hope can be useful for many scientists. 

I started working for the school of Civil Engineering at Universidad Industrial de Santander in October 2020. I look forward to meeting great scientists and students to continue evolving in the understanding of our tropical mountain streams.