Postdoctoral Researcher – Hazards Thrust
University of Oklahoma | Civil and Environmental Science
Chris Szpilka (she/her) is originally from and currently resides in Helena, Montana. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a concentration in engineering and physics from Carroll College. She has a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a concentration in water resources from the University of Oklahoma, where she is a postdoctoral researcher in their School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science.
Tell me a little bit about your path to CHEER. When and how did you get involved with the Hub? How long have you been a part of the team?
I joined the Hub in August of 2023 as a member of the hazards thrust. I am a “floater” in our research group at the University of Oklahoma (OU) and am assigned to projects as we receive funding. As such, I am always working on a variety of projects – and am used to working mostly independently with bi-weekly Zoom direction. When I came onto the team, I honestly was surprised by how big our multidisciplinary team was. I have been part of other multidisciplinary projects but we rarely had large group meetings, so this “teamwork” aspect is completely new to me.
As you said, the Hub is a highly multidisciplinary team with a variety of backgrounds and expertise represented. What has your research looked like in the past?
My fascination with this kind of research started when I was an undergrad at Carroll College. My honors thesis for undergraduate studies was titled, “Evapotranspiration Estimates for the Closed Norman, OK Landfill,” where I compared several mathematical estimation methods for evapotranspiration to actual pan evaporation measurements over an entire year. During that summer Research Experience for Undergraduates, I met frequently with the other undergraduate students and saw how their projects in water chemistry and remediation fit with my mathematical modeling. I was able to present my work at the American Geophysical Union Hydrology Days just before graduation, which was an amazing but scary experience. I began graduate work at OU that fall in computational fluid mechanics, which allowed me to combine my mathematics, physics, and computer programming background into the diverse projects that ultimately became my dissertation: “Development and Analysis of Algorithmic Improvements to the ADCIRC Hydrodynamic Model.” For my research, I did mathematical analysis of different discretization techniques and improved the model physics by testing new transportation mechanisms for three-dimensional baroclinicity (e.g., investigating how including temperature and salinity differences affect the modeled ocean circulation).
Since the beginning, I’ve loved the application of mathematics to solve real-world problems and the organized logic of creating a lengthy and complicated computer program, especially the optimization of multiple combined programs into a single workflow. I have had the opportunity to present at many national and international conferences throughout my career. Even though it is still intimidating, I enjoy being able to meet other researchers and discuss other approaches to solving similar problems just like I am in the Hub.
As a member of the hazards thrust, what kind of work are you doing now?
Right now, my team is working on the precipitation and hydrology models, which use the location and wind speed from a given storm track to create an estimated precipitation field. This information is fed into the hydrology model to ultimately determine the stream discharges and riverine inundation due solely to the event precipitation. In past projects, I have primarily worked with the larger hydrodynamic model called ADvanced CIRCulation (ADCIRC), which uses the storm track and stream discharges to determine the coastal inundation due to wind, waves, and river discharges, so there has been a bit of a learning curve in getting familiar with the precipitation and hydrology models. However, with my background in mathematics and experience working in a variety of programming languages, it has been a fun challenge. Now that I am more familiar with the structure of each code, I can make more headway on improvements.
It can be tricky remotely collaborating with other team members, but we’ve come up with a general workflow. It’s like passing a baton in a very long relay. Right now, climatology impact is studied by the hazards subgroup at Stony Brook, who verify that current and future climatology is represented by the chosen events (i.e., storm tracks). Then I run these tracks through the precipitation model to create rainfall fields, which feed into the hydrology model to compute river discharges and inland inundation maps. Finally, the ADCIRC group at RENCI brings all of this information together by running it through the coastal model and compiling the output to store in the Knowledge Framework.
For this first year, I have mainly been familiarizing myself with the precipitation and hydrology computer programs and coming up with ways to fix or temporarily “patch” the weaknesses. I have also worked with other members of the hazards thrust to coordinate and optimize the overall workflow. This next year will be spent improving the precipitation and hydrology models and setting up the model domain for the new study areas in Texas.
What is it like working with the CHEER team members (faculty, students, postdocs)? Who do you work closely with?
I mostly work with the other researchers in the hazards thrust. However, our output is input for many of the other thrusts so I am used to working with the other thrusts and trying to coordinate data requests in various formats. I have found the team at large to be very friendly and I enjoy getting to know the other postdocs and graduate students. I hope that I can attend a meeting in person to properly meet the other participants. It is also nice to see what the other thrusts are doing and how their work relates to my own. As a modeler, it’s easy to get laser focused on the nitty gritty details and forget the larger scope of how the results are being used. It’s a nice reminder to have the monthly meetings!
What have been some of your favorite parts of CHEER? What have been your Hub highlights? These might include site visits, working with specific faculty, publications, conferences, and so on.
The highlight of every project I work on is solving a problem or making a substantial improvement to a model that I am working with; it’s that final “aha” moment. That’s the math geek in me. The extra benefit of working with larger teams on multidisciplinary projects is that the microscopic work I do has the potential to benefit society and potentially save lives, especially when dealing with hazards risk assessment, planning and mitigation. I have been working with the same hazards subgroup for many years now on a variety of projects, but it is nice to have regular meetings for CHEER that encourage a tighter knit community. Given that I work from home in a completely different state, I enjoy traveling for conferences and meeting the people that I work with.
It has definitely been a great experience working with researchers from so many varied fields. In addition to the experiences gained on the project itself, it will be great to have such a diverse group of individuals in my network for future collaborations.
Tell me a little bit about what is next for you. What are your next steps in or outside of the Hub? Do you have any specific career plans? What are you most excited about?
I will likely continue through the end of the CHEER project. I have no specific plans for the future because the projects I work on usually depend upon which grants are funded. Some might say that I have “failed to launch” in a typical career path, but I don’t see it that way. I get a change of scenery every few years, and I love the flexibility of being a postdoc and working on a wide variety of projects without the additional stress of managing a typical faculty career path. I do help out with online courses for master’s students and enjoy teaching, but my true passion is solving problems.
What do you like to do for fun outside of work? Is there anything about you that might surprise readers?
When I am not working, most of my time is spent with my family. My husband and I have four children, ranging from 3 to 20 years old. When I have “me” time, I enjoy reading, being outdoors (we have an extensive network of hiking/biking trails right outside our front door!), traveling, and working on home improvement projects. Something that would probably surprise most readers is that I started playing ice hockey when I was in college and have played every position, including goalie. There is something strangely satisfying about having other players project a hard object at you with as much force as they can and managing to stop it! However, that cannot beat the feel of the “wind” on your face when you skate down the ice at full speed on a breakaway.
