RSM River Mechanics Podcast

Dr. Gary Parker is one of the defining figures in modern river mechanics and sediment transport. He's a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois or Urbana Champlain where he's been since 2005. Before that he was a distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota. He's a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has won more scientific awards than I can count - in multiple disciplines - that could each be thought of ...

About a year ago an interdisciplinary tam at Oregon State invited a collection of subject matter experts for workshop on floodplain sedimentation processes. The workshop took up a very specific question but gathering this much expertise on floodplain landforms and processes generated a wide-ranging discussion of how floodplains work, how to restore them, and even what they are. So when Desiree Tullos reached out and invited me I brought my podcast gear in just in case…...

Over his career Dr. Bill Dietrich has had an outsized influence on both the discipline of geomorphology and the community that surrounds the discipline. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Dietrich is one of the most influential geomorphologists of the last several decades, known for developing process-based theories of landscape evolution and geomorphic transport laws for soil production, hillslope tra...

So far on this podcast we've generally used the noun "sediment" to describe sand, gravel, and maybe cobbles and boulders. But the same word also gets used for silts, clays, and muds - materials that behave so differently that lumping them together as "sediment" can blur important distinctions. This podcast was overdue for a conversation about fine sediment, and I knew exactly who I wanted to talk to. In the notebook where I track episode ideas, I labeled this one the “ERDC Cohesive Brai...

I only know one person who can claim >60 years of federal service. This episode's guest, Mike Spoor. Mike spent those years with the US Army Corps of Engineers Huntington District (in West Virginia on the banks of the Ohio River) and even more years before that as a contractor to the Kansas City District. But Mike did not just log federal service. He focused curiosity and insight with a relentless field program to convert those years into insight. Mike's decades of ...