People

Margaret Kalcic 

Margaret Kalcic’s research is in the area of watershed hydrology with a particular focus on water quality in agricultural regions. Before taking a faculty position at OSU she completed her undergraduate degree focused on Bioengineering at F. W. Olin College of Engineering, her Master’s and Ph.D. in Ecological Engineering at Purdue University, and a postdoc at the University of Michigan. Since 2013 she has worked on decision support tools and watershed modeling in the western Lake Erie watersheds to encourage policy- and agricultural decision-makers to incentivize and adopt effective conservation measures to tackle Lake Erie’s nutrient goals. She has a broad and applied research program spanning water quality modeling, geospatial analysis, stakeholder engagement, ecosystem services, and field-scale monitoring of conservation effectiveness.

 

Graduate Students

 

 

Haley Kujawa is a Ph.D. student in the Environmental Sciences Graduate Program at Ohio State. She received her bachelor’s in Biological Systems Engineering with a minor in green engineering from Virginia Tech and her master’s from Ohio State in Environmental Science. Her master’s research focused on assessing accuracy and uncertainty in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) built for the Maumee River Watershed. She will continue with water quality modeling research as she pursues her Ph.D. Her career interests lie in using research to inform environmental policy.

 

 

Elizabeth Callow is a master’s student in the Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering (FABE) Department. Elizabeth graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.S. in Agriculture, focusing on Agronomy, and a minor in Engineering Sciences. Her research focus is evaluating stacked best management practices developed to reduce nutrient loads in agricultural drainage waters. Elizabeth is also working on developing the research group’s new water quality analysis lab. Elizabeth grew up on a family farm in Northwest Ohio and is very excited that her research is tied to that region.

Research Scientist & Post-doctoral researchers

Vinayak is a Research Scientist in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. His current research involves assessing field- to watershed-scale impacts of implementing BMPs such as cover crops, denitrifying bioreactors, and drainage water management on hydrology and water quality. Vinayak is also coordinating FABE’s Extension and outreach efforts through the Overholt Drainage Education and Research Program, and the International Program for Water Management. Prior to his current position, Vinayak worked as a Research Associate II at the OSU South Centers, Piketon Ohio, and worked on projects focused on water quality, irrigation management, and soil health for the Soil, Water, Bioenergy program at South Centers. He was also co-lead of a statewide Extension signature program focused on soil health (www.soilhealth.osu.edu). The program provides soil health education to extension personnel, producers, and youth, and fosters interdisciplinary collaborations for soil health research. Vinayak holds a Ph.D. in Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, from The Ohio State University and MS in Water Science and Technology, from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. For more information, visit https://u.osu.edu/shedekar.1/profile/

 

Asmita Murumkar’s research interests are broadly in the field of hydro-climatology at the river basin scale. Her expertise involves stochastic hydrology, hydrological modeling, data analytics, climate change assessments, remote sensing, and GIS. Currently, she is working on hydrology and water quality modeling of the western Lake Erie basin in response to fertilizer applications, especially during high-risk storm events.  Before, joining the Kalcic Lab, she was a postdoctoral researcher at OSU’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC). She conducted hydro-climatic modeling in an interdisciplinary project funded by NSF-CNH (https://mlab.osu.edu/morsl).

Dr. Murumkar received her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Agricultural Engineering from India. She has a Ph.D. degree in Hydrology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee (India). Besides research, she is an active member of the Postdoctoral Association at OSU.

 

Sushant Mehan is a postdoctoral scholar in Kalcic’s lab in the  Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering (FABE) at The Ohio State University. Dr. Mehan has six years of experience in data analytic skills in water resources engineering and put them to use to assessing and mitigating issues associated with poor water quality under the different dynamics of natural and anthropogenic conditions. Additionally, Dr. Mehan has about two years of industrial experience in SWAT and SEBAL based ET simulations that include but are not limited to source code modifications, improving crop module, and improving parameterization of water quality model to simulate nutrient transport from the surface to groundwater for diverse cropland use, including, tomatoes, almonds, citrus, and others. So far, during his academic journey, he chaired, co-chaired, volunteered with the ASABE, ASABE Young Professional Committee, AGU, SSSA, Purdue ABE Graduate Student Association, undergraduate and graduate competitions, and journal reviews. He has published 13 peer-reviewed articles and three book chapters and reviewed more than 130 peer-reviewed articles. He serves with the hope that his contributions will add value to the field and inspire others. He aims to apply my research to reduce and mitigate the impacts of worsening global water issues.

 

 

Anna Apostel is an incoming postdoctoral scholar at the Ohio State University in the Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering Department. She received her B.S. degree in Biology at Denison University and an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Ohio State University working on the identification of model equifinality and uncertainty quantification in Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) development. Her current research focuses on Harmful Algal Blooms in Lake Erie’s Western Basin and watershed modeling of the Maumee River using the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT).

 

 

 

Former members of the Kalcic Lab:

Grey Evenson’s research focuses on watershed hydrology and he has a particular interest in the development of new models and tools to improve watershed health. Prior to joining the Kalcic lab, Grey served as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education Research Fellow with the US EPA’s Office of Research and Development and as a Postdoctoral Fellow within the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech. In his time with the US EPA and Virginia Tech, Grey developed expertise in the application of watershed-scale hydrologic models to simulation the hydrologic and biogeochemical impacts of wetlands. Grey holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Ohio State and has expertise in watershed hydrologic modeling, wetlands, geographical information systems, and computer programming languages.

 

Xioqiang Liu’s research interests are broad across the field of soil and water conservation, and his current research focuses on water quality of streams, primarily in agricultural settings, and on agricultural best management practices to address nutrient leaching out of agricultural systems. He received his undergraduate degree in agricultural education at Shandong Agricultural University, his master’s degree in geology from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, his Ph.D. in ecology at Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Postdoctoral training in agricultural engineering. Besides research, he is interested in teaching and learning, and he believes in the importance of self-learning and self-improvement. He has co-taught and taught Environmental Hydrology courses in the Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering department, and he has assisted Dr. Andy Ward in teaching Watershed Hydrology and Stream Geomorphology and Drainage and Irrigation.

 

Elizabeth Schwab is a master’s student in the Environmental Science Graduate Program. She received bachelor’s degrees in both agronomy and environmental science from Iowa State University. She is interested in assessing the accuracy of public perception of water quality across agricultural and non-agricultural communities, and in using this information to influence targeting and delivery of outreach and education efforts. Elizabeth is passionate about making education effective and enjoys learning about how people shape their perceptions of the environment.

 

 

Ashlee Balcerzak is a current master’s student in the Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering. Ashlee has a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, focusing on water science from The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on agricultural best management practices to improve instream water quality, nutrient runoff, and freshwater biota. She is passionate about clean drinking water solutions and the intersection between ecology, engineering, and water science. Ashlee grew up on Lake Erie, wanting to clean up to area’s harmful algal bloom problem. She hopes to get her Ph.D. in a similar area.

Undergraduate students

 

 

Teressa Pell is a fourth-year Biological Engineering student minoring in Environmental Science from Mentor, OH. She spent the past two summers working with Elizabeth Callow on her project related to best management practices to improve water quality. She enjoys going to the field to collect water samples and currently helps process field samples in the lab. She is very passionate about water quality, remediation, and sustainability. In the future, she hopes to attend graduate school and get a dog.

 

Ross Candor is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Ecological Engineering. His work experience was with the United States Army Corps of Engineers as a part of the Missouri River restoration project. Ross also spent a summer working at Ohio State’s Stone lab as a student research lab assistant. Ross is a part of the field team responsible for ISCO water quality samples from northern Ohio. He grew up in Gahanna, Ohio which is very close to the Columbus campus.

 

Claudia McAllister-Peterson is from Yellow Springs, Ohio, and has worked for the department as an undergraduate researcher for two years. She is a fourth-year student pursuing an ecological engineering degree with a minor in studio art.