February 14, 2025
The School of CEEES has the pleasure of hosting Dr. Diogo T. Bolster on Friday, February 14, 2025 at Clemson University. Dr. Bolster is the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Hydrology and the Henry Massman Department Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Bolster will present a seminar titled, “Transport of Complex Substances in Complex Environments.” His seminar will be at the Watt Family Innovation Center auditorium at 1:25 p.m. with a reception following in the Watt Center atrium. Please join us!
After completing his undergraduate degree at University College Dublin in Ireland, Dr. Bolster worked as a CFD Engineer and Project Manager in Ireland and the UK before moving to the United States and completing his doctoral degree in Environmental Fluid Dynamics at the University of California San Diego. Upon completion of his Ph.D., he moved to Spain and worked as a postdoctoral researcher for the Technical University of Catalunya in Barcelona. In August 2010, Dr. Bolster joined the University of Notre Dame.
Research Summary:
Despite our image of Earth as “the blue planet,” global supplies of water are indispensable, yet fragile, resources. Threats to freshwater must be understood to assure sustainable supplies, as well as guide remediation and development. However, the complex heterogeneous makeup of the natural environment makes conventional models inadequate in predicting contamination. For example, EPA studies suggest certain court ordered remediation strategies do not adequately remediate polluted sites up to 90% of the time. Often, failure is attributable to designs that do not adequately represent natural complexity. Failing 9 of 10 times is unacceptable by any standard, highlighting a need for better models that incorporate natural complexities and heterogeneities. Dr Bolster’s research focuses on this, primarily for porous media and groundwater, but more recently also surface water flows. The ultimate goal is to provide improved tools and information to enable better management and protection of water resources. Active research topics include: (i) Mixing and Reactions in Highly Heterogeneous Porous Media; (ii) Incomplete Mixing and Chemical Reactions; (iii) Transport of complex substances in flowing aquatic systems; (iv) Anomalous Transport in Porous Media; (v) Transport of Nanoparticles in Streams and (vi) Multiphase Flow in Heterogeneous Porous Media as well as other collaborative efforts. Dr. Bolster’s scholarship record includes over 170 articles published in prominent scientific journals.
