Dr. Deborah Nykanen, Professor

Dr. Deborah K. Nykanen joined the Civil Engineering Faculty at MSU in August 2003.

Academic Background

She received her BSCE, MS and PhD from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Nykanen taught for several years at Michigan Technological University before joining MSU.

Professional Interests

Her research and teaching interests include hydrology, hydrometeorology, and remote sensing applications. Her research efforts focus on scale issues in hydrometeorology and understanding the role that rainfall and soil moisture play across all scales in modulating land-atmosphere interactions. The overall goal of her research is to improve predictions of the water and energy cycles across all scales. Her research involves numerical weather and climate prediction, coupled land-atmosphere modeling, quantifying scale-invariant properties of rainfall and soil moisture, and development of upscaling and downscaling methods for hydrologic variables.

Professional Affiliations

Dr. Nykanen is a member of the American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, and American Society for Engineering Education. She serves on several national committees including a NOAA Science Advisory Group and the AMS Committee on Hydrology. She has published in journals such as Water Resources Research, Journal of Geophysical Research, and Journal of Hydrometeorology.

Awards